Do it for the children

People who only casually watch movies (or casually listen to music, or insert any artistic medium here) often can't understand why those of us who follow them pretty closely get so upset about shitty movies. And I can really only speak for myself, but I would wager that this applies to many others, it's not that these movies are necissarily so atrocious (though they often are), it's more that in a world populated with so many brilliant movies, why would you watch the same derivative, formulaic shit over and over again?

I'm not arguing that you need to throw away all of your movies and watch solely Citizen Kane for the next 6 months so that you may critically analyze all that it represents. I just mean to say that any shitty, quickly-produced star fuck picture can easily be replaced by a similar, good movie. Much in the way that nearly all corporate music is merely an over-produced derivative of artistically interesting movie, pretty much all shitty movies are just white-washed re-creations of good movies. So why not watch the good movie instead?

However, there is a special reserve of hatred all of us who wish to appear hip to good movies have for those movies with absolutely no redeeming credit and those who produce them. For example, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the geniuses behind Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet The Spartans. These people feed off of an area below the lowest common denominator and will apparently stop at nothing to destroy American cinema. I don't just artistically disagree with these people, I genuinely hate them with a passion.

In this vein of director/producers, though, there is a kingpin: Uwe Boll. Specializing in turning video games into (terrible) movies, he is the mastermind behind such classics as Bloodrayne, Bloodrayne II, and Bloodrayne III (currently in pre-production). His movies go so far beyond even good-in-a-terrible-way that I'm pretty sure they are true signs of the coming apocolypse.

But there is hope. Mr. Boll has agreed to stop making films forever if a petition can be gathered with 1,000,000 signatures asking him to stop. Thanks to those ever-enterprising internet nerds, we now have the petition. It just needs your signature. As of this writing, it has a little over 47,000 signatures. Please sign it before DigDug: The Movie and DigDug II: The DigDuggening are inflicted upon the children of America...

Missing the Classics

Some Jimi Hendrix came up in my iTunes shuffle today and it got me ruminating about the necessity of classics. I've never gotten into Jimi; I really only have a couple selected tracks on my iTunes that come up every once in a while on shuffle, but that's it. I don't own any albums, and I would never just sit down and listen to a Hendrix album.

It's not that I dislike it, I just don't really respond to it. I can definitely see his genius...I mean, there's obviously a reason his name is synonymous with the guitar. And I know how massively influential he is, especialy among many of the acts/artists I really love.

But his music has just never really done it for me. I've never been able to get into that jammy 60s kind of blues rock. Again, I don't think it's bad, I just really can't ever imagine myself sitting down and intentionally listening to it.

Does this make me a bad music fan? I try to pose as somewhat knowledgeable about music, but can I even do that if I have no working knowledge of Jimi? Are their certain people you're just not allowed to skip if you're a rock fan? What about you, faithful readers? Are there people in your cannon that you're emberassed to admit you just didn't go for no matter how popular/talented they hapen to be? Is this to be allowed? Or should I really be stockpiling some Jimi and forcing myself to understand it? Discuss...

The Onion releases a direct-to-dvd movie

Yep, doesn't need much more commentary than that. Though I suggest a renting before a purchasing, because while the trailer made me laugh exactly twice, it seems like this could be a bit thin stretched over 90 minutes.

Just because

Chances are you've already seen this photo plenty, but because I'm on a one-man mission to make sure it doesn't die, take a close gander once more. Just for funsies...


Good buddies Donal Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein gather to discuss brill cream, long-winded speeches, and general evil

Odd yet Unexpected Politics Day

In two un-related yet somehow seemingly inter-connected stories, Sean Hannity turns out to be a racist (big surprise) and a leftist radical gets re-arrested for no reason (even bigger surprise).

Hannity, the man so concerned about Barak Obama's preacher's "racism," turns out to have a bit more racist connection of his own. Apparently Mr. Hannity is close friends with Hal Turner, a notorious white power advocate who has applauded the firebombing of an apartment complex housing "savage negroes" and has called for murder as a way to regulate America's population of un-documented immigrants. Not even mentioning his calls for forced steralization of all minorities, you can see the guy has a bit of problem with racial diversity. And in addition to being a regular commentator on Hannity's radio show, the two have apprently had an extensive personal relationship over the years.

In other news, local radical and former SLA-member Sarah Jane Olson was re-arrested this weekend after being relased upon serving 6 years in a federal prison. Turns out, despite the fact that she was granted patrol over a month ago, after some political pressure from right-wing police unions and "victim advocacy" groups (which are in all actuality, police-funded P.R. fronts) a "mistake" was found in the records and the judge is now claiming she still owes a year on her sentence. Ms. Olson, in addition to being a founding member of the coolest cooperative in the Twin Cities, was convicted of second-degree murder after participating in an SLA bank robbbery during which a bank patron was killed. Now certainly no one defends that crime, but last I checked, once someone serves their sentence, they're free to go. I don't remember the clause in the constitution that says you can put people back into prison because you disagree with their politics. I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing an old Iraqi dictator did that was so offensive it required 4,000 American lives and 1,000,000+ Iraqi lives to get rid of. Just saying...

But in happier news, there's only 7 days, 7 hours, and 59 minutes until the first pitch of the season for the local boys, who neither spout racist right-wing rhetoric nor unlawfully imprison leftists. So at least there's something to look forward to in this world...

The Most Brilliant Car Thieves in the World

After spending a nice spring break in Appleton, Wisconsin (home of Houdini, Joe McCarthy, and Willem Defeo), I came home to find someone had bashed out the passenger side window on my car. The irony of this is that there was literally nothing to steal in my car, and true enough nothing is gone. For crying out loud, I have a $5 AM/FM stereo I bought at a junkyard and wooden cupholders my dad made me after a previous robbery. I'm not really sure what they thought they were going to get out of this operation in the first place.

But there was one thing missing: the ash tray.

And this wasn't a secret stash-of-money ashtray. I don't have any stashes of cash, because I'm about as broke as my car. Nope, it was just a tiny ash tray full of old candy wrappers and half-chewed gum. What they could want with it was beyond me.

Until it hit me--you may remember that this past winter, some vandals stole my cupholders. Well, there's really nothng else to conclude than that this was the same group of people. Having satiated their thirst (pardon the pun) for my cupholders, they have returned for the ash tray.

And it can only follow from that that somewhere in a dank warehouse in this fair city, sits my cupholders and my ash tray side-by-side. These are not isolated events, this is the work of mastermind car thieves who are stealing my precious little Nissan piece by piece until they can reconstruct it elsewhere. It may be the most insidious and hard-to-detect form of car thievery in existance.

So you can bet your sweet ass that as soon as that glass is replaced, I'm keeping a watchful eye on my shifter knob before those bastards come back and take that and the volume knobs on my stereo. After all, at this rate, my entire car will be gone by 2029...

Happy Palm Sunday

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!"

--Pope Benedict XVI, Palm Sunday Mass 2008.

This is actualy happening

Yes, a scant 21 years after the original, the Hollywood brain trust has finally greenlighted Lost Boys II: The Tribe.

Lost Boys is completely a "you had to be there" movie. As the use of the phrase "suck monkey" in the trailer indicates, unless you were born and/or spent your formative years in the 1980s, Lost Boys probably holds nothing for you.

But if you were born and/or spent your formative years in the 1980s, then you are probably incredibly excited right now. That movie could politely be termed a ubiqitous part of growing up in the 80s; I don't even really like it, and I've probably seen it a good half-dozen times or so. And I'm going to go see the sequel, despite the fact that I know it will be terrible, and as I mentioned, I'm not even that big a fan of the first one. Yet, I feel oddly drawn to it.

Maybe it's because Feldman's trademark red bandana survives the trip into the 21st century. Maybe it's because both Feldman and Haim will be in the flick. Or maybe it's because the head vampire will be played by Angus Sutherland, half-brother of Keifer, the original head vampire.

But in any event, check out the bad-ass trailer (and multiple Corey Feldman interviews) here:

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This is approximately where I get off the train

Don't get me wrong, I'm down. I've played every version of Guitar Hero, and have a band with some buddies on Rock Band (which happens to be ranked 4,763 in the world...be on the lookout for Dr. Murderfist). Hell, one night when really bored, I made a MySpace page for my fictitious band in the game. So I understand that these games are really fun, and a great way to waste the limited disposable-income of your youth.

And as a decent, but by no means good musician, I understand the vicarious thrill of being able to simulate rocking out really well. But I've finally found my jumping off point. Noted favorite of metal bands guitar-makers Peavey have announced they are making full size, "realistic" guitar controllers (pictured a left) for the game(s). From the Peavey website:

"Peavey has released a new line of Guitar Hero controllers made from a life-sized Peavey guitar. These are real wood guitars that have been modified to play the video game."

And you can get one of your own for the low, low price of only $399! In other words, for the price of a decent real guitar, except that one would have strings and the ability to actually produce music. Look, I'm never one to say that people should quit playing video games and attempt to actually live their life, but if you're going to put that much money and time into learning a fake instrument, why not just put the same effort into the real thing? Considering the guitar costs $400, the game costs $150, and there are endless buy-ins that drive the price up even more (not to mention that you need a $200 sytem to play it on), why not put that money toward a real guitar and some lessons? Just a thought.

But if you are heading over to the nearest Peavey dealer to get one of these monstrocities, be forewarned that of the current styles available, 8 of the 20 are Lynyrd Skynyrd themed...I'm not sure how to read that, but apparently the good folks at Peavey asume that of all rock fans, a good 40% are Skynyrd fans above all else. I hope to God this is not true.


In comepletely un-related news, President Bush has been imlpicated in a prostitution ring involving up to 50,000 women and children.

Winter Soldier this weekend!

As those of us in the northernmost state know, winter is not over until May at the earliest. So while the winter soldier meetings being this weekend might seem odd to others, it seems like a perfect time for us up here.

For those not in the know, the original Winter Soldier meetings were held during the Vietnam war. Organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), it brought together over 100 soldiers in Detroit to discuss the atrocities they had commited/seen commited in the name of the United States. While it was blacked out by all corporate media (save the New York Times, which ran a short story about it a week afterwards), it re-ignited the anti-war movement and helped turn the tide decisively against the Vietnam war.

Well, wouldn't you know those cantankerous soldiers are up to no good again. This weekend Winter Soldier 2 is convening in Maryland. Because this one is probably even more likely to be blacked out by the media, you should check it our for yourself.

Here at the U, it will be the beginning of spring break, and I can't figure out a better way to kick-off the week than with harrowing testimony of war crimes commited by our federal government...

War is the Whole Milk in America's refrigerator of shame

I know that fundamentally those "what else could we have done with the money" screeds about war spending are problematic in many ways. Most notably, no one ever really seems to write "what could those people have done with their lives" pieces about the over 1,000,000 dead as a result of this illegal, immoral, and unjust war. It's also a bit of a pointless exercise to ponder spending money that's already been spent.

But yet, there's still apart of me that thinks maybe someday we can see that nearly a third of all Americans lack proper healthcare (or even have any) and think that is a big enough threat to our nation that we drop everything to drop 10 billion dollars a month on it. So, in the interest of hippie-esque daydreaming, here are some things we could spend money on instead of murder:

Estimated cost of war $10 billion a month:

“In FY2007, DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion including about $10.3 billion for Iraq and $2.0 billion for Afghanistan.” [CRS Report, 2/22/08]

The total estimated cost of the war is somewhere in the neighborhood of three trillion fucking dollars (when any amount gets over 1,000,000,000,000 it's considered customary to insert an expletive in the middle of it). Here's what the authors of the above article found we could do with that money:

By way of context, Stiglitz and Bilmes list what even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century. America, says Stiglitz, is currently spending $5bn a year in Africa, and worrying about being outflanked by China there: "Five billion is roughly 10 days' fighting, so you get a new metric of thinking about everything."

Remember a few things about this quote: for one, the numbers are only for one trillion, so triple them in your head. You think 24 million new units of housing would help our homeless problem? Or those displaced by Katrina? Or how about 129 million scholarships. Would that possibly help our nation compete on the international stage? Help remedy some of our problems with poverty? Or what about another 150 years of social security? Seems like that couldn't hurt. But even more depressing is the final note on Africa. What we give the entire continent in aid is not even equivalent to half a month's spending on war. Perhaps this is why our international reputation is slightly sullied?

But as I said, the money is already spent, and we're already feeling it here. Or at least anyone who ever uses anything that is publicly funded is feeling it. You know, like when bridges collapse in the middle of major American cities. Or when hurricanes destroy entire cities and the National Guard is all busy somewhere else.

Really, the point of this is as simple as it is preachy: why is that we are only able to mobilize these massive outputs of resources for killing people? Why not try using all of it to help people? Just once, so we can see what happens?

It's like switching to 2% milk. Sure, at first it seems really weird and foreign, but eventually you don't even notice the difference. And it sure is a lot better for you. Maybe there will be a day when we try out the whole milk of war just for old time's sake, and find that it's become so thick and disgusting that we can't even rememeber why we thought it was good to begin with...

When are ads not ads?

The best local station in the Twin Cities (and probably in running for one of the best nation-wide), The Current, recently finished it's membership drive. Being a public readio station, it's member drive is pretty much the boilerplate PBS/NPR beg-for-cash telethon, but with hip music instead of Lawrence Welk and Dr. Who.

And every year during the mebership drive, I have a strong internal debate about giving them my money. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Current. It plays enough of what I know to make me comfortable, but plenty of new stuff to keep me somewhat in the loop. Though I'm not really big on the indie shoe-gazer crap they're all so in love with, but you take the bad with the good, I suppose. And if it went off the air, I would most assuredly miss it. Good music delivered by knowledgable DJs actually crafting real set lists is a giant rarity in today's radio landscape. It's certainly nothing I ever experienced in my 23 years in Iowa, and probably will not have again wherever I end up in life. So I really don't want to see it go.

But the reason I don't quite feel comfortable forking over my petty amount of cash is the ads. One of the mantra's they repeat throughout the membership drive is that the Current is listener-supported, adverts-free radio. And if that were the case, I'd be more than happy to shill out some of my measly earnings.

The only catch is they're not ad-free in the slightest. The most glaring example came this morning, as one fo their most excellent DJs Mark Wheat explained that this section of the program was brough to me by "Great Clips, with dozens of locations throughout the Twin Cities metro area...'don't worry, you're at Great Clips!'"

I fail to see how that's not an ad. Just because the DJ read it instead of a struggling actor picking up cash on the side doesn't make it any less of an advertisement. And if they've got corporate sponsors, why do they need to squeeze money from a poor graduate student?

So I guess it's kind of a shit-or-get-off-the-pot type thing. If they were truly listener supported, I'd have no problem with supporting them. But if maor corporations are giving them money, I'm not really convinced they need mine.

Obligatory Brett Favre post

As someone who was a legitimate Don "Magic Man" Majkowski fan (seriously, I even had his Starting Lineup figure...man, remember Starting Lineup?), I've always had more ambivalent feelings about Favre than most. Of course, being a Vikings fan probably didn't help my opinion of him that much. But it goes deeper; Majkowski was a much more fitting QB for the Pack. He wasn't afraid to rock a mullet, even after they had largely passed out of style. He had a Polish name, not some crazy-ass French name with the R in the wrong place. And he wore number 7, a real quarterback number. But alas, I guess he'll always be the Drew Bledsoe of Wisconsin to Brett Favre's annoyingly charming Tom Brady.

And I think the matephor is apt. Sure, you can blow all this smoke about how Favre played like a kid and was such a competitior, but those things really come off more like being a dick when you're a fan of the opposing team. And come on, only clean-cut, popular white players get away with being drug addicts and yet somehow still get to be rolemodels.

Don't get me wrong, he was good and could be fun to watch. But I'm not about to sit here in Minnesota and say that number 4 was good. Besides, what no one's really talking about in all of this is how the Vikings should pretty much be favored to win the division next year. That's a lot more interesting than some interception-prone pill-popper, if you ask me.

Back From the Abyss

Bit of a silence here on the ol' blog lately, as I've been fighting against a bad a flu for the past several days. I'm cautiously optimistic today that I'm in the clear, but it was a bad one. The kind where even reading was really out of the question, so I got so very little done. But I did watch two entire seasons of The Office, so I guess it wasn't an entire loss.

But in the meantime, it seems as if the political world was blowing up. Coolest news item from over the long weekend: the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has voted, over protest of leadership, to strike on May 1st in a call to end the war.

This is a pretty big development, as it will not only mean that the entire West Coast will be effectively shut down, but they are also the first union to move toward taking bold and effective strike action in effort to stop the war.

I'm embittered and cynical enough to know that this may never even actually happen; the leadership could find a way to call it off, the Feds could invoke any number of injunctions to prevent it, etc. But it could be a watershed moment in this war. If other rank-and-file union members could push their slow and complicit leadership into taking similar actions, it would be a huge step toward finally pushing the federal government to enact the will of the people. Afterall, when 70% of the populace is against the war and all candidates for election merely talk strategy, not withdrawl, the only step left is to take radical action to force and end to the war.

So keep your eye on this one. It may not amount to anything, but it may also signal a radical shift in an American populace increasingly fed-up with the many, many downsides of neo-liberal hegemony. Either way, it's a pretty keen development.

R.I.P. Irony

Mother Jones recenlty compiled a playlist of all the songs the U.S. military uses to torture prisoners. First of all, we have a playlist to torture people. That in and of itself should probably be problematic enough, but it gets worse.

Some of the songs on their are what you'd probably think of when you think "music used for torture": Eminem, the Meow Mix song, the Barney Theme Song, Neil Diamond, Christina Aguilera. Surprisingly, no Dave Matthews, but I'm sure the list is still a work in progress.

The award for the weirdest song on the list goes to Raspberry Beret. I mean, if I were in a secret C.I.A. detention center in Undisclosed Location, Eastern Europe, I'd be cool with jamming out to some Prince.

But the aforementioned irony-killer would have to be that "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine is on the list. For those of you not in the know, have a sample verse:

Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed tha war canibal animal
I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a library
Line up to tha mind cemetery
What we dont know keeps tha contracts alive an movin
They dont gotta burn tha books they just remove em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as tha cells
Rally round tha family, pockets full of shells

Yep, nothing like a shrill screed against the military-industrial complex to torture people at the hands of said military-industrial complex. This means that this is now either the official definition of irony, or the concept is indeed finally dead. Discuss amongst yourselves...

Basketball, Class Warfare, and The End Times

In a welcome surprise yesterday, I ended watching the Timberwolves play well for 3.5 quarters of basketball from 8 rows off the court, for free. I don't really care for basketball that much, and the Wolves are terrible beyond terrible this season, but who can pass up such seats? They are officially the best sets I've ever had to any sporting event in the history of my life, save Fort Dodge Dodgers High School basketball, and I'm not sure that technically qualifies as a sport.

But I do have to say that from that close, the game certainly takes on a different quality. For the first time, I really understood how fast the game is and how impresive things like Jason Kidd's no-look between-the-leg passes really are. Though when he's on the opposing team and he tries to make a really cocky no-look pass that gets picked off and taken the other way for a monster dunk, it's even more entertaining.

And being in the good seats is an experience in and of itself. For instace, we got to use the same entrance as the players. Thus, there's no way Dirk Nowitzki didn't hear me call him a Nazi, unlike when I'm shouting that from the 3rd balcony. And we even got to use better bathrooms than the mouth-breathers in the cheap seats, because when you have money like me, you can not condescend to pee next to poor people. But it's for the best; afterall, when they see what we have, it just angers up their working-class blood anyway.

Having the good feeling I would never be in such good seats again, I took full advantage of all amenities available, often getting up just to walk out to the lobby so I could have the satisfaction of going back in the fancy entrance. But I did get the distinct feeling that maybe it's a sign of the apocalypse when I guy like me gets to sit in seats like that. And much to my horror, I find that world leaders agree and have taken the precaution of creating a doomsday vault of all the seed varities in the world, just in case I ever get tickets to the very court-side seats that come complete with tuxedo-ed wait staff and the end-times truly come.

I get it, but I don't want it

As I was doing the dishes this afternoon, I was struck by how all of the glasses I use have graduated from the odd mish-mash of free promotional cups and hand-me-downs to the slightly more representable collection of semi-classy pint glasses. And then I briefly thought about how in a few years, I'll probably breakdown and buy a matching set of glasses to use, just because everyone else my age has and I fear being left behind, apparently.

And then I realized how much I was the middle-of-the-montage, slightly-younger version of the sad-sack main character of the movie who at the end of said montage is forced to throw out his beloved old pint glass by his shrewish, image-obsessed wife as a poorly contrived plot point to show how much our once-plucky protagonist has had the life sucked out of him.

Now, I highly doubt anything of the sort will ever happen to me -- for example, dating a radical leftist means you're less than likely to have an image-obsessed wife -- but at the same time, I'm sure most no one expects this to happen to them.

Add suddenly, I realized: "Ok, Hollywood, I get it. I can see how one could let this happen to them. I understand the feeling of how looking at something completely innocuous, like a pint glass, can suddenly make you wonder where the bygone days of your youth have gone as you trudge through the meaningless world of bills and responsibility, having no idea when the nights of care-free idiocy ceased."

But the damn montage still doesn't work as a plot device. It's just a too transparantly lazy way to establish report with the ellsuive 18-49 year old white, male demographic. It's not witty or clever, or even subtle in the slightest. You may as well just have the character say "I am sad that my former lifestyle has been replaced my current, less desirable lifestyle."

So, you know, please stop doing it.

Cheap and easy activism

As I've probably mentioned in here once or twice already, the rabble-rousin' kids of Youth Against War and Racism are working of kicking recruiters out of their schools in the Twin Cities area. We're close to a major victory in St. Paul and hope to use a win there to bring the fight to Minneapolis, and serve as a template for students nation-wide who are sick of people coming into their school to prey on their clasmates and send them off to die in an illegal, immoral, and unjust war.

"But Jesse, I have no time for such things. I am so mired in my day-to-day activity that taking even the slightest step to fight military recruitment in our schools is too onerous for me!" you say.

Well, I've got the solution for you. We've set up an online petition that you can sign to show your support. We'll take all of these signature to the big show-down with the school board next week, so sign it now and tell all your friends.

Sign the petition here, and go back about your regular existance, but now with the smug self-satisfaction that comes from taking extremely small steps to help win major battles.

Eli Manning and White Privilege

As I move into the latter stages of my grad career, my mind has increasingly been turning toward teaching. It's always been a thought of mine, expecially since I'm earning a degree that pretty much only lets you be a professor, but as I get closer to tackling my reading list, taking my prelims and getting to the point where I can teach my own course, I've started to put a great deal of thought into the nuts-and-bolts aspects.

The most fun of these is compiling anecdotal examples from pop culture that I can use to illustrate sociological concepts to the kids and make me that "cool" prof who is really cool only in his own head.

But lately I've been kicking around a good one: Eli Manning. Specifically, Eli is an ideal example of racial, gender, and class privilege, specifically how these act as advantages, but still leave room for personal agency.

Eli Manning has finally proved he's a decent quarterback. I mean, it does take some talent to lead a last-minute, Super Bowl-winning touchdown drive against a team many had already crowned as the greatest in history. But prior to that, he was really just some shmuck who had a famous dad and even more famous brother.

And therein lies the hidden operation of multiple forms of privilege. Sure, Eli clearly has some talent, but would he ever have been able to put that talent to use were he not Eli Manning? That is to say, if his father wasn't a famous NFL quarterback who made great investments in training him his whole life would he have been able to start at a major Division I (or Bowl Subdivision) team? And if he did not have an older brother shedding record books would he have been such a high draft pick?

Think about it -- how much promise did Eli show in college? Enough to warrant a number 1 draft pick? It's at least an arguable point.

And that itself proves what I'm trying to say. Had his name been Jamal Henderson and he went from a vocational high school to starting a few years at Grambling, with the exact same skill sets, would he have been drafted so high? Or even at all? Not to mention if he had another X chromosome in place of that Y.

This is not to deny that he has talent. Like I said, he turned in a pretty good game in one of the best Super Bowls ever played. But if his skin color, gender, and family lineage (class status) had not opened the doors for him in the first place, would he have ever even had the opportunity to display that talent?

Maybe, but it seems unlikely. Hell, if he didn't have all those factors working in his favor, he'd be lucky to be as successful as Cooper, let alone Peyton.

Unlike in the Metrodome, there will be no return of Batista

Though you've probably already heard, Castro resigned today.

I think this is a good moment to counter a few points of official U.S. propaganda.

While Cuba has it's fair share of problems, it is a tiny island nation under embargo from more than half the world for the last 50 years. However, even after it lost support from the Soviet Union, it still managed to have higher literacy rates and lower infant mortality rates than the United States.

Think about that: a tiny iselnd, constantly under military threat, with little access to foreign goods or supplies, does a better job education and taking care of its citizenry than does the most powerful and richest nation on the planet.

Just further proof that socialism doesn't work, I suppose.

But how did they acheive these marvelous results with little money and few supplies? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that both education and healthcare are universally free throughout Cuba. Apparently not having to choose between eating and getting medication improves people's health. But to be fair, who amongst us could have seen that coming?

And on a final note, could we maybe just out of temporary kindness stop calling him a dictator? The U.S. has tried to kill him on multiple occassions (my favorite being through a C.I.A. planted exploding cigar). Oh, and by "multiple occassions" I mean "at least 638 documented times."

If the Cuban people tired of Castro and his oh-so-despotic ways, they would have been the most well-funded and armed rebellion in the history of the world. Yet they chose not to. Maybe it had something to do with the far-better health care they were receiving. Or maybe it was the free housing and education. Or maybe they simply prefer the Cuba Libre the way it is and don't want to have to come up with a new mixed drink. Who knows?

But in the end, it comes down to the fact that he stepped down. Not because of military pressure, not because of growing threats at home, not because of a coup. Because he's retiring. How many dictators in world history have you ever heard of saying "Well, that's about enough for me. Think I'll just give up ultimate power and move into a retirement home." My guess is that it's zero, because dictators don't do that.

Don't get me wrong, the guy's had his share of problems. I mean, he did grant himself the right to detain citizens and decalre their constitutional rights null and void at his discretion, he authorized expansive spying programs aimed at his own citizens, he's clamped down on all forms of dissent, and even went so far as to illegally invade a sovereign nation in defiance of international law and the opinion of the rest of the world, he...oh, wait...well, I'm sure Fidel did something bad, too.

The other blog gets some love

(Thanks for the heads up from Jon)

The Contexts Discoveries blog got some big ups today from Org Theory, a pretty interesting and well-written sociology blog.

Since I've been meaning to pimp it here myself for some time, this seems like the perfect opportunity to finally make that pitch to all of you, my faithful readers. As way of introduction, Contexts is a magzine published by the American Sociological Association. The idea is that it will be the public mouthpiece for sociology, kind of like Popular Mechanics, but fewer articles on self-driving cars.

The Discoveries blog is intended to present interesting and relevant current sociolgical research in an easy-to-understand synopsis for the lay reader. In short, it's a cool place to check out social research without having to read the dense and intentionally obtuse journal articles scholars produce.

And your humble li'l blogger happens to be on the graduate student editorial board of Contexts and is a regular contributor to the blog, as if you needed any more reason to check it out.

So go read it, bookmark it, get its rss feed, and become the most sociologically informed person on your block!

This is not a joke

After logging out of my hotmail today, I stopped to peruse the fluff articles on msn.com (the automatic re-direct when you log out) and came across a gem of an article with this title:

Did terrorists cause the housing mess?

Yes, I shit you not, this was presented with no hint of irony or disclaimer of the aging writer's crippling ether addiciton.

For a second I thought it might be a bit of radical journalism snuck into the mainstream, and that this muck-racking young journalist was not afraid to label the Bush administration terrorists, but it turns out that it was really just ghost-written by Guiliani.

I'll spare you the long-winded rant on how horrible our mainstream media is, but only because I have to believe you're already formulating your own.

Not sure how much commenting this needs

Corey Haim recently took out this regrettable ad in Variety:



But really, it raises more questions than it answers:

What is he ready to make amends for?

How could he afford this ad?

How cracked out is that signature?

Seriously, did he borrow the money for the ad from Feldman?

Like Ron Shapiro, but for bad music

A couple of weeks ago, I was going on a bit of a Dennis Miller-esque rant about pop music, specifically the likes of Justin Timberlake. I was trying to justify to a friend why it's ok to enjoy his music on a certain level. I mean, I know it's throw-away bubblegum pop, but it's pretty good for throw-away bubblegum. I mean, he's at least trying to do something new and slightly innovative, even if it's all well within the confines of corporate radio. And it's not like he set out to do anything dramatically different in the first place, and his music is good for what it is. And on a business level, you gotta give it to the guy, he knows what he's doing. His first disc was Pharell produced when P was the be-all and end-all of Hip Hop, and JT has almost single-handedly led the (welcome) Timbaland resurgence.

And after finishing this protracted and long-winded defense of such worthless music, I felt a momentary pang of regret, as I realized I had just become a corporate rock apologist. I was half waiting for the phone to ring with an offer to write for Rolling Stone (zing!). This kind of balderdash would've never flown back when I was a hardcore, straight-edge college punk with no room in my revolutionary schedule for such ersatz crooning.

However, over the years as my sensibilities, as well as physique, have softened significantly, I've realized there's no shame in enjoying the occasional well-crafted pop album. I liken it to Oreos. Comprised almost completely of trans-fats, one magazine article I read posited them as the worst food in existance, given the entire lack of nutritional value as well as the aforementioned harmful fats.

But yet they are so fucking delicious.

It's much the same way with your higher-end radio pop. There is no shame in enjoying it, for it is scientifically designed to be enjoyable. I actually envision this music being made much the same way as Oreos: old men in white coats scurry around a sterile lab combining beats and effeminite vocals until they have the most potent pop mix known to human kind. It's not a terrible waste that I'm entertained by such a product, only a mere inevitability of time and scientific advancement.

Now, don't get me wrong. I would much, much rather spend my time with some obscure Ween tracks, or Brother Ali, Billy Bragg, Modern Life is War, or any number fof verifiably good bands. Hell, even if I'm going for pop, I'd rather have some Jackson 5. But much like I strive to get my 3-5 servings of both fruits and vegetables everyday and have long since given up Captain Crunch in favor of organic granola and flax seed, every once in a while I just feel compelled to sneak to the corner store, buy a big bag of Double Stuffs, and contemplate exactly just what futuresex will be like.

Finally, some justice in the world

Friends, there is much about the world you can be angry at. An illegal, immoral, and unjust war continues to kill thousands. Our healthcare system lets millions of people die for lack of care, simply because they cannot afford it. Over half of the world lives on less than $1 U.S. per day. Corporate control of the world has thrown our environment into peril.

But I no longer despair. For once in my life, I have finally seen justice enacted on a grand scale.

Yes, we may all breathe a sigh of relief tonight and go to sleep with some faith in the world, as those fucking Patriots finally lost.

For all the talk of greatness, all the hype, all the un-punished cheating, they simply could not defeat the out-of-nowhere Giants. And for that, I thank all that is good and holy.

Lazy friday morning = stealing someone else's post

Courtesy of Jonathan Schwarz, via This Modern World:

Several weeks ago this statement of Hillary Clinton got lots of attention:

I would point to the fact that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality. The power of that dream became real in people’s lives because we had a president who said, “We are going to do it,” and actually got it accomplished.

What’s gotten less attention is what Martin Luther King himself thought on this subject. Chris Rabb has the bad taste to point out that King wrote this in an article published in January, 1969 after his death:

The past record of the federal government, however, has not been encouraging. No president has really done very much for the American Negro, though the past two presidents have received much undeserved credit for helping us. This credit has accrued to Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy only because it was during their administrations that Negroes began doing more for themselves. Kennedy didn’t voluntarily submit a civil rights bill, nor did Lyndon Johnson. In fact, both told us at one time that such legislation was impossible. President Johnson did respond realistically to the signs of the times and used his skills as a legislator to get bills through Congress that other men might not have gotten through. I must point out, in all honesty, however, that President Johnson has not been nearly so diligent in implementing the bills he has helped shepherd through Congress.

"Dude was the best TA ever"--direct quote

This past semester I was a teaching assistant for Intro to Sociology, which was a new and interesting trip for me. You see, being a TA means many different things at many different places. But what it means here in the sociology department at the U of M is usually that you show up to class, sit there while the prof lectures and pretend you're paying attention, hold office hours no one comes to, and grade things. Pretty straightforward, and not a bad way to make nearly 12 grand a year.

But Intro is different. When you're a TA for Intro, you have to run "discussion sections." These are basically smaller versions of the class because someone somewhere must have felt guilty about sticking 200 kids together in one class. So, in this case, I had an hour discussion section before class, then the three hour lecture, and then a differet discussion section after class.

And I learned something about myself. Namely, that I was hidesouly under-prepared for what went down. This was the first time in my life I ever had a class of my own. And there's not really a training session or practice or anything. You just kind of get thrown in there, told to teach something vaguely on-topic, and good luck. Well, I don't recall anyone telling me good luck.

This may have been the single most humbling experience of my life. I was a bit cocky going in; I mean, I know my stuff, I'm an outgiong guy, I've got extensive improv experience. I really thought I could handle pretty much anything, and besides, it's Intro--how hard could it be? Well, it turns out it's very hard. For example, on the very first day, I had planned what I was sure was way too much to do that day. When we were done with everything I had planned, we were a good 25 minutes into a 50 minute period. Not too much you can do there, other than admit you're an idiot on the very first day of class. A great way to start things.

But, still, what is the point of all these ramblings? Well, this past week I got my first set of student evaluations. And I mean ever, because I've never been in a position to be evaluated before. However, I just couldn't bring myself to read them. I mean, I really, really felt like I fucked up that class. To the point where I almost apologized on the last day because I felt like I had been so horridly out of place and done such a shoddy job.

But last night I finally read them. Now, I have to preface this by saying that probably more than half of the students only did the required bubble-sheet part of the eval (in which my average scores we exactly the same as the department averages), but a good number did actually write comments. The only negative one read "I wish I had been in Rehema's (the other TA) section because she grades easier." Technically not true because Rehema and I grade pretty much the same, but hey, not too shabby.

Overall, though, they were pretty damn positive, including the titular praise from this post, though the self-effacing part of me wants to think some of the good comments were sarcastic. In the end, I don't so much know that there's a point to this post other than a mixture of relief at evals that weren't anywhere as bad as I thought they'd be and my general vanity. But I suppose a grandiose point that can be brought home from this is that you should always cut yourself a little slack, because you're probably doing a much better job in life than you think you are.

I wonder what Terry Ryan's up to right now?

Well, he's gone.

And we got the possibility of having maybe one or two good players in the next couple years.

This hurts...real bad.

Please do not call me all day, for I will be curled in the fetal position, holding the beloved ticket stub from the game of his 1,000th strikeout to my chest, while gently sobbing.

Not to brag, but some of us saw this coming

I'm not one to give much creedence to the notion of issue burn-out, but even I can't get enraged about the war sometimes these days. I mean, does anyone out there believe in it anymore? Something like 60-70% of people consistently report they want the troops home. The troops themselves continually (according to surveys) say they don't believe in the war, and even the Republicans running for president are acknowledging it should be ending soemtime soon.

But if you don't mind, let me try to get us all riled up again for a minute. By now you've hopefully heard that the Bush administration lied at least 935 times to the American public in the run-up to the war. You know, the war that's costing us over 11 billion dollars a month.

Let's recap that really quick: We're spending $11 billion a month on a war that we have indisputible eveidence was based on a lie.

Even without the hundreds of thousands of dead people that's appaling. And now all of the Democrats are pretending they didn't know any better when they voted for the War in the first place, but in their defense, they already have enough to worry about right now because the houses they bought with sub-prime loans are being forclosed on (they were mis-lead about that one, too).

Of course, some of us saw this coming a little earlier (like, before the war started). So, if I could, I'd like to reiterate my appeal that next time you believe us. You know, before 100,000 or so people are dead, we've spent several hundred billion dollars, and we've completely destroyed our standing in the international community. Couldn't hurt to try.

The Difficulties of Cleaning the Bookshelf

I really love books. What can I say? I write that sentence and realize how painfully, painfully nerdy it is, but yet it is completely true. However, at the same time, I look at the bookshelf over-flowing with random literature and the random large piles of books in every corner of my room and realize I can't keep on going like this. Not only is it really annoying to have that many books in your room, I also am keenly aware of the fact that I'll have to move again at some point relatively soon, and I just can not believe I'm going to be willing to carry all of those books.

But now, after having spent a half hour going through the shelves and the floor, I've not even got half a box full of books I can let go of. And most of them are books I got for free when professors were retiring that I wasn't really even interested in to begin with. I just can't seem to let any of them go, even though I fully know I'm being completely ridiculous. The argument with my inner, rational self goes approximately like this:

Will you ever read Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling again? You hardly even read it when you was supposed to for an Intro to Philosophy class 6 years ago! Come on, it's a classic philosophical text! Why not keep it? Besides, it makes you look deep to have high-brow books sitting around.

But what about the obscure Marxist "theory" books that are really just crazy old men arguing historical minutae with one another? Yes, I know, but they're out of print. What if I want to read them someday? Then I won't have them and will forever curse the day I let that gem of a book go.

Ok...but a college textbook? Are you serious? Yeah, but that book changed my life when I was in college! I can't get rid of that! Citizen Kane got rid of Rosebud and look what happened to him! I don't want to die some crazy and embittered William Randolph Hearst stand-in muttering "the sociologically examined life" to myself as I slowly fade away into regret and nothingness.

And there I stand even still. I've got half a box full of books to give away, and several thousand arguments as to why I should never get rid of a single book ever again.

Dissecting the Democratic Debates

First of all, applaud me for avoiding the obvious and groan inducing triple-D comment in the title.

Anyway, in watching both the Democratic debates last night and before in New Hampshire (which, if you happened to be making a drinking game out of, be glad you didn't chose "drink every time they say change"), I think I'm ready to call it an Obama-Edwards ticket. Not that I wan't that ticket, but that's what I think it will be.

Sure Hilary had a win in New Hampshire and a big upset in Nevada, but we're moving to the South, where one could reasonably argue race could be a more positive factor than gender amongst Democratic primary attendees, and states like Minnesota, famous for electing the first Muslim member of Congress.

But there's also been some clear positioning. John Edwards, the Dickensian boot black of the debates ("Oi! Oy'll shine that White House up good, me will! Sharp as a thistle, clean as a whistle it'll be!"), has clearly been siddling up to Obama in the most shame-facedly naked display of desperation since the midget drove the tank. Edwards has clearly decided he has no shot and that he's hitchin' his wagon to the winning horse.

Pay attention the next time you hear him in a debate. He opens about half of his points with "So I argue, and Senator Obama agrees with me, blah blah blah" or "Senator Obama and I agree that blah blah blah" or some variation of that. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if during the debates he was writing "Obama + Edwards" inside of little hearts in his Lisa Frank notebook.

So you heard it here first: the Democrats will end up running an Obama-Edwards ticket, and they'll have the smilin'-est, most positive, can-do ticket in the history of politics.

Back with a depressing post

So after a month of crazy travels and oddly random adventures (much more on those later), I thought it best to come back swinging with some old school political rantings. So here goes:

This evening, in memory of Dr. King, I attended a showing of The Devil Came on Horseback, a documentary centering on Brian Steidle, an ex-Marine turned humanitarian observer in Sudan, and eventually the Darfur region.

Steidle was essentially the first person to bring back classified (for unknown reasons) photos of the genocide occuring in Darfur. While the horrific photos initially sparked intense media coverage of the issue (despite the Defense Department asking him to not share the photos with anyone), the attention waned and public focus moved on to [insert rant about mainstream media descent into tabloid coverage over actual news here].

A panel afterwards actually featured some insightful comments and ideas for action, including discussions of several divestment campaigns (I'm proud to report both the state of Minnesota and the U of M have divested all holdings from Sudan). But one of the most practical was a hotline that has been set up to contact elected officials urging them to take action:

1-800-GENOCIDE

In an ingenious move, all one needs to do is call the number and enter their area code. They can then press 1 to be connected to their Representative, 2 to be connected to their Senators, and 3 to be connected to the White House. It even plays a short recording of talking points for you to mention before you are connected.

And even someone as cynical as yours truly believes in the power of contacting elected officials, as even the hyper-conservative representative I had when I was in undergrad (Jim Nussle, at the time the Chairman fo the House Budget Committee...also famous for coming to session with a paper bag over his head) signed on to the call to close the School of the Americas citing constituent pressure, and this guy did not budge for anyne, so it must be useful for something.

Dialing up a good blog

With nothing to do and armed with but a dial-up modem (Fort Dodge, IA: Where it always 1996!) I have successfully wasted nearly all of this Christmas Eve Morning, which is possibly the mom nonsensical string of nouns and adjectives I've ever heard used on broadcast television, which is saying quite a bit.

Anyhoo, in reflecting on many year-end lists and what not, as usual the Onion has effectively destroyed them through superior, cynical sarcastic displays. And also as usual, they have a much better take on most subjects than pretty much anyone involved. For instance, check out their statsheet on the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal:

The discovery of a dogfighting ring in a house owned by Michael Vick has led to speculation of what other secrets the Falcons quarterback might be hiding. Onion Sports runs down the potentially damaging sights that frequent visitors to Vick's mansion have reported witnessing

Embarrassingly thick glasses Vick needs to see more than 20 yards in front of him

A fully annotated slam book, evidence that Vick and his friends can get pretty catty when they get together and start talking

Empty beer cans everywhere, because although Vick is well over legal age, something about empty beer cans always seems to add drama to an already troublesome situation

Authentic original of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," implying that either the version in the Oslo museum or the one owned by Norwegian billionaire Petter Olsen are in fact forgeries

Over 200 tubes of lipstick in various tastefully understated shades

Perfectly legal, albeit tasteless, cat-fighting set-up

Framed diploma proving that Oxford University awarded Vick a doctorate in Jacobean theater during the 2003 offseason

Water cooler with secret compartment containing stash of Oreos

Assorted helmets, pads, and other gladiatorial gear, presumably for use in some grotesque human-versus-human bloodsport

Note that last one. In all the uproar and Peta protests and all of that hoopla, what was conspicuously missing from the discussion was the fact that football (as much as enjoy it) is far more gruesome and damaging than dogfighting.

The counter-argument against this is usually that pro football players get paid millions of dollars. However, this really only applies to the elite few. The average NFL career is 4 years and the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 50, due to the stress the put their bodies through. Think about that: these players literally sacrifice a quarter of their lives to play football for a couple of years. Not to mention the fact that most of them spend their retirement in intense pain and often in poverty, given the terrible treatment retirees are given by the NFL and the astounding medical costs to deal with their old playing injuries.

I'd like to draw some sort of grandiose conclusion about a society that sends you to jail for two years for hurting a dog yet gives millions upon millions of dollars to owners and executives who force human beings to work themselves quite literally to death for them, but it's Christmas Eve Morning, so I'll leave that for a future post.

Merry War on Christmas

Before I shut this thing down for the holidays in a little bit, I'm hoping to get a flurry of interesting stuff out there...or at least enough to justify coming back to read this thing. Anyway, here's an interesting recent video:



It's part of an effort by Robert Greenwald, master of the quickie-leftist documentary (see Outfoxed, Wal Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, etc.), to step up the boycott of Fox News. Two Democratic front-runners, Obama and Edwards, have alreay publicly declared a boycott of all-Fox sponsred events.

Now, I understand that the Deomcrats are not much better or much more desirable than the Republicans, but if they were to enact a whole-sale boycott of Fox News, it could actually do something positive. Recenly, Fox has begun to slip from the highest-rated cable news network into the land of shrill partisan shouting so slanted that even the American public views it with distrust. And for a politics/news channel, a boycott by one of the two major parties pretty much spells death. If not death, at least a Ralph Nader-like decline into an oblivion where even the people who agree with you no longer want to be associated with you.

So check out the video, head on over to the site, sign the petition, and hope the Dems grow a pair sometime soon...

Update: Troops don't support the troops

In my last post I began to address the out-dated notion that you can't support the troops without supporting the war. Well, today's Los Angeles Times reports that apparently families of active-duty personnel and the soldiers themselves don't support the troops. I tried to reproduce the poll graphic here, but it's too small to legible. It's embedded in the article, or you can look at the most interesting response here.

When asked about when the troops should be brought home, more families of soldiers in Iraq and veterans of Iraq want them home immediately than do those in the general public. Similarly, the same number of vets as the general public think the war was not worth it that (60%).

For people not familiar with military culture, this is huge. It is incredibly rare for members of the American Armed Forces to ever publicly discredit the president, even more so during war time.

So this brings us to the inevitable question: America wants the troops home. The citizens want the troops home, the military wants the troops home, everybody wants the troops home. Why won't our elected officials bring them home?

Supporting the Troops

By now it is such a moot point that it's become a cliche to say you can support the troops and not support the war. Or maybe (more likely) it's become cliche in the circles I run in. Either way, though, pretty much every American has to have seen at least one "Support the Troops, Bring Them Home/End the War/Etc." sign, pin, or bumper sticker by now.

So that's not really the problem anymore (yeah, I know there are plenty of people who think otherwise, but just grant me this for the sake of argument). The real problem is that nobody looks at what the other side is doing. Namely, how are those supporting the war, and especially those who started the warm, supporting the troops?

It's still criminally under-reported that the Bush administration has been cutting veteran's benefits since the start of the war and continues to do so. And let's not forget the famous "hobo armor" stories of soldiers who have to patch together their own safety armor, or the stories of families purchasing flak jackets themselves to send to their relatives in Iraq and Afghanistan who were not equipped with armor.

But even more criminal than the cuts and the shoddy armor are the ways in which the soldiers who have returned home are being almost completely ignored in many instances. This was brought to light recently when a CBS investigation turned up the fact that there are 120 veteran suicides per week. Coupled with the fact that Veterans make up the largest percentage of the homeless, with even conservative estimates putting it at 33% of all homeless being veterans of some branch of the military, this paints a very bleak picture.

This isn't to just grind a political axe (though I could point out that my anti-war actions in no way effect veterans, whilst the actions of those in power who say I don't support the troops significantly negatively effect them), but rather to simply point out the completely criminal nature of our military system. The people we task with fighting for our country (rightly or wrongly) are thanked with debilitating injuries for which they receive little to no care, mental illness for which they rarely if ever receive care, and massively disproportionate rates of homelessness.

So, to beat a dead horse, who is supporting the troops?

Yeah, it's cliche, but...

Over at MSN, they're once again loudly touting those brilliant business minds who have figured out how to not pay taxes.

The reasons given for not paying taxes are even more laughable than the already low tax rates most major corporations have. For example, DirecTv paid only 2% in taxes last year because of "historical losses." Yeah, why should they have to pay taxes when they're down on their luck? It's just like the way I barely make any money so I don't have to pay taxes...oh wait, I'm taxed quite heavily despite having .000013% the income of DirecTv.

Or how about Broadcom, a semiconductors manufacturer? Well, they pay 1.1% in taxes because while they made $703 million overseas, they "lost" $336 million domestically. And yes, that still means they made well over $350 million in profits, but hey, who's counting? Oh, and before you go crying for them about their domestic losses...well, they aren't really loses. Broadcom is just one of many corporations to put it's highly developed Research & Development wings (which require highly educated and trained workforces) in the U.S. while they put their manufacturing (which does not require costly education or training) overseas, in this case Singapore.

As such, while they continue to make obscene profits, they're technically losing money in the U.S. As such, they pay incredibly low taxes because their domestic earnings are so low. Never mind the money all goes to the same place (which is inside the U.S.), or that the money they're "losing" in the U.S. is simply part of the payroll of any tech company. They simply figured that if they split it up like that they won't have to pay taxes. And this is all legal.

So you know, just something to think about when you're filling out your taxes this year. I don't know about you, but I'm thinking I'll start counting the money I make from teaching foreign students as over-seas expenditures. That oughtta bump me down a tax bracket or two...

The run up to war...again

It's fairly amazing, when you get down to it, how recent wars have been fought on evidence roughly as credible as notes passed in eighth grade math ("Do you like neo-liberal hegemony? Check yes or no"). By now, everyone (hopefully) knows about how the U.S. case for the invasion of Iraq was almost entirely predicated on the testimony of Ahmed Chalibi, which of course turned out to be completely made up.

But the fact that it's made up doesn't matter. Because even though the Bush administration itself has admitted it fabricated every reason for going to war, we're already there. There's already hundreds of thousands of people dead, and the Democrats sure as hell aren't going to do anything because then they won't look as tough as the Harvard and Yale-educated, Conneticut-born cheerleader who likes to play dress up.

Well, not surprisingly, the exact same thing is happening with Iran. While the big Lie has yet to come (is Iran looking for yellowcake yet? Probably! Stay tuned!), the little lies that fan the flames are already coming.

Case in point: the National Review Online, the elctronic version of the hyper-conservative National Review, has a regular feature writeen by ex-Marine/"reporter" W. Thomas Smith, Jr. Smith has been fabricating lies left and right on the NRO website, with the biggest being that "thousands" of Hezbollah forces were invading the Christian section of Beirut, a claim which turns out to be completely made up. A good overview of what's going on here.

And what was the National Review's response to this completely fabricated story? Some good ol' timey racism. According to the editor's of NRO, it's not Smith's fault that he completely lied about what's going on; rather, it's actually due to the "Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate."

Yep.

Anyway, when this Smith guy is sitting next to the first lady at the next State of the Union address being touted as the only reporter courageous enough to expose those dirty I-ranians and allow the U.S. to invade, and then three months later the government quitely apologizes as all of his stories and "facts" have been proven to be completely false, just remember that you heard it from me first.

A Week in the Arts

As usual with my increased free time around the ol' Thanksgiving holiday, I've been filling as much of my life as possible with as many entertaining, non-school-related bits of work I can before I return to the soul-crushing drudgery of my life. So here are, in no particular order, the more interesting things I saw/heard last week:

M.I.A. w/ opening act The Cool Kids at First Avenue

You know, I'm not really much of an M.I.A. fan, but this was a really fun show. I think it stems from the fact that her music is dance music, and isn't really something you just plug in and sit there listening to. Because let's be frank; if you can tell the difference between any two M.I.A. songs you are either a shaman of some kind or a liar.

But live? Live is a whole different story. With incredible energy and dance moves that can only be described as nearly as confusing as her singing, it's a fun time. Plus, the Cool Kids turned out to be a quite pleasant surprise. I must admit I was pretty wary of a band I'd never heard of that also had such a stupid, stupid name, but they know how to rock the mic. Highly recommend them if you are a fan of rap from the years 1988-1992.

No Country for Old Men

The Coen brothers are a rare pairing in that they barely ever make flops. Widda T likes to say the only reason they made The Ladykillers is because their new dog had bladder control issues and they couldn't afford a new carpet, which is the best explanation I've heard thus far.

Fortunately, this is no Ladykillers. No Country is probably the best serious Coen brothers movie since Fargo (I say serious because Lebowski is beyond reproach, but of a completely different style of brilliance). It's always pretty much impossible to sum up one of their movies, so I'll just say I highly recommend this. And the ending...I won't ruin it, but it was one of the most challenging and interesting movie endings I've seen since Gone, Baby Gone (a highly under-rated flick). Definitely should make your "Best Of" year-end list you've got kicking around in your head.

I'm Not There

I must admit I'm still torn on this one. I'll really need another viewing before I can say definitively how I feel about it, though I definitely lean toward the positive. I like the idea of having 6 different people play Dylan, with only one of them even attempting to look like him (Cate Blanchet, ironically). As Dad pointed out, even if that wasn't the best way to do it, it sure as hell beat whatever they could've done as a straight biopic (see: Walk The Line).

But some parts of it failed to impress. Possibly the worst decision was the attempt to integrate Dylan lyrics into the movie. At best, they thudded awkwardly into the conversation, but often they felt more like Scary Movie-style mentions of pop culture that reward even the stupidest viewer for having once heard a chart-topping Dylan song. But despite it's significant flaws, it's moments of brilliance kept me engaged. Any time a two-hour plus movie doesn't drag at all, you know something was done correctly.

Well, having experienced a pretty satisfying week of living, I turn back to my insular world devoid of meaning and free time...

Will write journal-length academic papers for food

Got a thick(er) envelope from the folks at Deviant Behavior today, but it turned out to be another rejection letter. Which is a bit disappointing, seeing as they're not that great of a journal. It's kind of like being turned down by the homely girl at the bar...at least you were kind of expecting rejection from the pretty one.

So it's back to drawing board again...sigh...always an academic bride's mate, never a published bride...

This, my friends, is the stuff dreams are made of...

As I noted round abouts this time last year, I've never been successful in my attempts to leave the kiddie table.

But what a difference a year makes. After sustained complaints, my family (albeit quite sarcastically) finally let me move on up to that de-luxe dinning table in the dinning room, as it were. I didn't get to move up to a full bed this year, but at least I got to move onto a couch in the upstairs living room, which receives heat. Baby steps, my friends, baby steps.

And let me tell you, the adult table is everything I thought it would be and more. Real chairs! Real table! Real words used in conversation!

Suddenly, the world is my playground. Food tastes better, the sky is bluer, the young ladies are more comely, and the slow-gripping desperation brought on by neo-liberal hegemony seems less overwhelming.

But more importantly, I feel as if I've finally crossed one of the great thresholds into the strange land of adult-hood. Today, I can stand in front of my God and my peoples and say unequivocally that I am indeed a Man, with a capital M, for that is now my right.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In case you're wondering what to be thankful for...

Man, there weren't toys like this when I was a kid...

A friend came across this playmobil set in Target. Yes, Target.



In case the details escape you, it's a WTO-protest anarchist vs. cop playset. Hopefully Arise! will be carrying them soon, just in time for the holidays. Perfect for that anti-authoritarian on your list!

UPDATE: Arise! indeed does carry them now. Stop in and buy yours today--teach your children how to fight authority while simultaneously supporting collective bookstores! It's a win-win!

My two cents on the writer's strike

Possibly the best thing to come out of the writer's strike thus far is ironically a demonstration of the power of the internet as a superior medium for communication. The writer's union has (not suprisingly) come up with the clever idea of putting together internet sketches, some parodying the shows they write for and some just simple interviews, but all discussing the strike and explaining what is going on broadly and giving the latest updates. They're now posting them regularly on YouTube as a way of forcing the agenda into the media, which for some reason doesn't seem to be providing very good coverage of a strike against, well, them. As a propaganda tool, it could not be more cleaver. Unions especially, but the entire progressive left generally, could take an example from this as a powerful model of strike/protest actions moving outside the status quo. Similarly, the media could take this as an example that the internet is indeed at least of equivalent importance to television, and that the writers should be compensated for their internet work.

The best one I've found thus far--"Not the Daily Show" starring One of the Writers:

News round up in a bad day for America

Two articles jump out at me this morning as I peruse the daily news:

First, the U.S. has fallen to 15th in average worker income.

And second, in what I can only hope is un-related news, the U.S. has been called a haven for war criminals.

It's fun to put news stries side-by-side and wonder about the state of this nation.

In a bit of slightly positive news, the Edwards campaign has said that if elected, he will introduce a bill that would strip Congress of their healthcare until they institute universal healhcare.

Now it's not a very good plan in that it still allows for insurance companies to rape and pillage, but it is a serious attempt from a recognized candidate to force the issue of single payer healthcare, which is a pretty big sea change from only a decade ago.

What have I become?

Last night, while reading a book I might include in the syllabus I'm preparing, I checked an end note. You know, the little number that appears after every so many sentences in academic books that corresponds to a number in the back of the book in the midst of a bewildering collection of diagrams, notes, and 10 point font.

And while I excitedly checked to see what book was being refferenced in the text, I stopped myself and wondered aloud how I had gotten to this moment. Here I was, nerdily flipping to the back of the book to find out what was cited. Not only that, but I was actually interested. I had followed the author's aside and honestly wanted to know where this information was coming from.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being excited about learning. Being a grad student, I would pretty much have to be a nerd who's excited about learning, or I never would have made it this far. But even I have limits. Even I have sighed loudly with relief upon noticing that the last 20 pages of the chapter I've been assigned are actually the end notes, meaning it's 20 pages less of reading. I've always pondered the very existance of such notes, knowing, just knowing deep down in my heart that no one but no one actually reads these things.

I mean, what the hell could be back there that would be worth searching through all of those notes, tucked away between the index (useful) and research design(whaa?!?)? The cure for cancer? The recipie for a low-fat brownie that doesn't let you down in the flavor department? What Meatloaf wouldn't do for love? I had always figured they were just a way to pad page numbers, built on the flawless assumption that you get paid more for writing a bigger book (though I still think that might be true).

But now here I am. Here I sit before God and all of you, my faithful reader(s), and admit that I have read an end note. But not only read it; I have seriously considered going out and finding the book refferenced.

How the hell did I get to this point? Man, graduate school is a weird process.

Not sure what this means, but...

in yet another blatant bit of theivery from you-gun:

Congratulations. If you have ever read and understood my blog, you are apparently smart enough to graduate from high school. Or, conversely, I'm smart enough to write things that sound like I graduated from high school. I think the both of us should be notably proud of our collective accomplishment.

Happy Veterans Day

And as a reminder, those who have fought for our country and received debilitating physical and mental injuries are woefully under-cared for. For instance, my cousin was talked into an honorable discharge form the Navy one week shy of the time required for medical benefits. Now she's in third stage kidney failure and can't afford the bills, and our compassionate armed services have politely told her to fuck off.

Oh, and one of every four homeless people is a veteran. That pretty well sums up our collective level of commitment to them.

And I'm the one who doesn't support our troops...

Race and Capital Punishment

In doing some work for Contexts, the "public sociology" journal that recently came here to Minnesota, I ran across some really interesting work on the death penalty. In addition to finding out that only 10% of those sentenced to death are ever actually executed (crazy, huh?), these two recent artciles by David Jacobs and friends had some pretty interesting findings.

Probably the most interesting was that civil-rights protests reduce both public support for and the number of executions, and are the most important factor in doing so. As a person who's had to answer the "why do you bother protesting? it's not going to change anything" qustion/annoyance several thousand times, that's a pretty comforting finding.

Another major finding in these two articles was that the death penalty is applied in an inherently racist way (surprise, surprise), but that it probably works differently than you think. While the race of the person convicted definitely matters, the race of the victim is the much bigger factor. Not surprisingly, those convicted of killing a white victim are far, far likelier to actually be executed than those sentenced to death for killing a black person.

Anyway, sometimes it's hard to write posts like this because if you still believe the death penalty isn't a racist form of state-sponsored murder, then you most likely live in a gumdrop house at the end of lollipop lane and frolic all day in the sugar cane forests with magic elves and pixies, and therefore scientific findings don't mean anything to you. But nonetheless, I think it's pretty interesting.


If you're a huge nerd and would like to find out more, check out these articles at your local library:
--Jacobs, David and Stephanie L. Kent. 2007. The Determinants of Executions since 1951: How Politics, Protests, Public Opinion, and Social Divisions Shape Capital Punishment. Social Problems 54 (3): 297-318
--Jacobs, David, Zhenchao Qian, Jason T. Carmichael, and Steaphnie L. Kent. 2007. Who Survives on Death Row? An Individual and Contextual Analysis American Sociological Review 72: 610-632

Why the Patriots actually suck, almost as bad as the insular media

Yet another football-related post.

Unfortunately, this past sunday, the Patriots beat the Colts 24-20, keeping their perfect season alive and allowing everyone at ESPN to open up a little bit wider and take the Patriots collective cock a bit further down their throat. Recently there was a good critique at the A/V Club about the problem with ESPN is that while it used to be a sympathetic yet good and critical outsider approach to sports (a la the New York Times) it has become a sycophantic sports-worship machine with posts filled by former athletes who will never question the game (a la the Wall Street Journal).

The current Patriots are a good case in point. The NFL is the un-disputed king of major league sports in America, but it jealously gaurds its place atop the sports mountain and is always clawing for new markets. And let us not forget the spectacular failure that has been their attempt to branch out into foreign markets, especially when compared with the success of baseball and basektball internationally. As such, the NFL, and it's underling ESPN, needs the Patriots. They need a team that's dominant, fun to watch, and yet ever-so-humble.

The problem is, the cracks are starting to show. For example, the Patriots are the most class-less team in all of professional sports, constantly running up the score. Two weeks ago, they even went for it on 4th and 1 with a 28 point lead in the 4th quarter, jsut to run up the score. What has the response been from the commentators at the major sports network? The consensus seems to be that if other teams have a problem with it, they should stop them. Much like the way I'm sure they would look at their mother getting raped on the street and say that if she has a problem with it, she should stop the guy, but that's fodder for a whole different post on the conservtaive individualism of sports broadcasting.

What no one seems to be pointing out (possibly because they've gotten a bit too cozy with each other) is the reason why the Patriots are so good:

Because they cheat.

They were caught illegally filming other team's practices to know their plays ahead of time. When they were caught, the league issued a fine and tried to bury the story, because as we've covered, they need the Patriots. But this does complicate the "if you don't like, play better" response: maybe the other teams (like the Colts) are playing well, but they aren't cheating.

And maybe we could cut out the praise of Bill Belicheck, the asshole who everyone thinks is a genius but already been proven to be nothing but a cheater with a bunch of good players. I think any coach could look like a genius if they knew what plays the other team was going to run.

For example, look at the coaches who have left. Remember how Charlie Weiss was an offensive genius? Well, now he's in charge of some of the greatest college football players in the nation, and yet cant score points to save his life, while the Fightin' Irish are en route to their worst season ever. Maybe it turns out that he's not so much as genius as it's really easy to look like one when you have the other guy's plays ahead of time.

All of which you think would make fodder for a great story, but not when the media needs this to go away just as much as the league does. Then there is no story. But the bigger problem is that when this happens with sports, it's annoying at worst. But the exact same process is going on with things that really matter (such as the impending war with Iran), and nobody's getting upset about that either. I guess it just goes to show that no one ever wants to question the motives of a Patriot, even when they're clearly lying.

UPDATE: Turns out Don Shula agrees with me.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

On this day 402 years ago, a group of Catholics in London, assisted by explosives expert Guy Fawkes (pictured above as he may have looked if he were a bad-ass super hero) were foiled in their plot to blow up Parliament and thereby assassinate the king and most members of the protestant aristocracy. Check out the pretty good wikipedia entry here.

The move triggered some increased freedom for Catholics, although it would be another 200 years before Catholic emanciaption was finally brought to the United Kingdom. While it's still mostly celebrated as an English day of rememberance, it marks an important international turning point for the freedom of Catholics.

Guy Fawkes has over time become a sort of cult hero amongst some, especially after the release of Alan Moore's superb graphic novel and later not-so-superb movie V for Vandetta.

So mark the day today, for it's a nice day to remember. Suggested activities include fireworks (as they do in Britain, Canada, and a few other paces in the British Isles) or acts of terrorism against oppresive governments. They're both pretty, but require varying degrees of commitment.

Why this commie still watches football

Two words: Adrian Peterson.

If you did not watch the Vikings game today (possibly doing work that desperately needs to be done, unlike me) then you are a grade A sucka. Adrian Peterson just put on possibly the best game of football I've ever seen, and I've watched a fair amount of football for a chap my age.

For crying out loud, the man just set the NFL single-game ruching record as a rookie. I know the Vikes are not looking dood at all this season (hey, it's touch plyaing without a quarterback or reciving corps), but this paints a rather rosy picture for the franchise. I personally would argue they should call this a practice season, tank the rest of their games, and then pick up one of tha half-dozen really good QBs that are going to be in next year's draft. And before you laught at the suggestion, just note that fact that tanking last year and getting a top-10 pick has seemed to work out pretty damn well thus far.

Anyway, without getting too excited off a caffeine-buzz/home-team win, you've got to admit Peterson clearly has the potential to be one of the greatest, possibly even better than that LT guy on the other team who had a pretty lackluster day. It really makes me want to wax poetic about the beauty of the savage ballet that is football, but I just spent three hours loving every minute of it and am now painfully behind for the day.

But then again, the Colts/Pats game is just starting, and that could prove to be fairly entertaining as well...