Yes, so I’m reading Zinn now

Posted on July 3, 2008 by David

So said a lanky junior Illinois congressman about the war not started on his watch:

The declaration that we have always opposed the war, is true or false accordingly as one may understand the term ” opposing the war.” If to say ” the war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President,” be opposing the war, then the Whigs have very generally opposed it. Whenever they have spoken at all, they have said this; and they have said it on what has appeared good reason to them: The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a per¬fectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us. So to call such an act, to us appears no other than a naked, impudent absurdity, and we speak of it accordingly. But if, when the war had begun, and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is not true that we have always opposed the war. With few individual exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the necessary supplies. And, more than this, you have had the services, the blood, and the lives of our political brethren in every trial, and on every field.

And if Obama be our Lincoln, and the Mexican-American War be our Iraq, then where is our Frederick Douglass?

The determination of our [...] President to prosecute the war, and the probability of his success in wrining from the people men and money to carry it on, is made evident frorm the puny opposition arrayed against him. No politician of any considerable distinction or eminence seems willing to hazard his popularity with his party… by an open and unqualified disapprobation of the war. None seem willing to take their stand for peace at all risks; and all seem willing that the war should be carried on, in some form or other.

Slightly related note: I dreamt that Obama chose Bob Kerrey as his running mate. Ummm, TGIT?

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Caravan (without the drum solo)

Posted on July 2, 2008 by David

Here is a wonderful new blog recently spawned by an accomplice of mine, the idea of which is to post mp3s of out-of-print vinyl from his obscenely large collection. This morning is Harold Dumont singing Duke Ellington.

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Kill Me / Driving

Posted on June 25, 2008 by Tito

Once upon a time, I used to make “Mixes” for my friends & family, distributed throughout the USA after being “burned”. One such mix landed in my sister’s mini-van along with her family, including a then 3(?) year-old “boy” who had cottoned to This Year by the Mountain Goats, often requesting it enthusiastically, “Play the ‘Kill Me’ song! Play the ‘Kill Me’ song!” whenever in the van. It’s simple pleasures such as these juvenile affirmations that keep this uncle truckin’.

Which is all fine and good until the day her family gets into a minor fender bender, and my sister’s top concern is that the boy will not continue his entreaties for “Kill Me” as the local police office approached their ride. Though, from a few thousand miles & days away, I would have preferred that he did. (Un)fortunately, he remained quiet as the officer was within earshot.
Anywho, NPR has decided that This Year is an excellent road-trip song, a view I share. But maybe just be extra careful when rockin’ it in the vicinity of a Super-Target parking lot.

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shit

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Tito

The Rake:

I thought at a certain point that his later material had gotten carelessly nihilistic; then I got a bit older. Now I see that he was just so damned disappointed, and that no one that disappointed is a nihilist.

Atlantic City

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kerning fail

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Tito

from failblog (of course)

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wanders, indeed.

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Tito

Joe Posnanski finds himself backstage at a Death Cab For Cutie show in Berkeley:

Anyway, beyond the obvious visual differences, and beyond the fact that the conversations revolve around Guitar Hero and the new Hold Steady record rather than Jeter Hero and how the hold is a bad statistic, it’s pretty much the same party. Which means I would rather be at an In & Out Burger* right about now. Oh well. The mind wanders.

And he ranks his top 5 KC BBQ joins, which is nice. (I’d had Jackstack as my #1, but his is solid)

Seeing listening to the Royals come back to beat the Giants 11-10 in their Monarchs throwbacks reminds me to pick up The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip Through Buck O’Neil’s America

I Will Follow You Into The Dark

and of course plenty of Brian Bannister analysis…

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TEV in SF tonight

Posted on June 19, 2008 by Tito

Mark Sarvas reads from Harry, Revised at Cafe Royale tonight.

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No Regrets: The Best, Worst and Most Ridiculous Tattoos Ever - Asylum | For All Mankind

Posted on June 18, 2008 by Tito

No Regrets: The Best, Worst and Most Ridiculous Tattoos Ever - Asylum | For All Mankind

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Time to call it a day…

Posted on June 17, 2008 by David

…when your most similar listener on last.fm goes by the name “penispenisballs“

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Street Levels

Posted on June 15, 2008 by David

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koinzidenz

Posted on June 13, 2008 by David

Full disclosure: I’ve probably set up 40 or 50 e-mails accounts in my lifetime, between various jobs, schools, and excite/gmail/myway accounts whose passwords I kept forgetting.

One that I set up for a yahoo! fantasy baseball league in my early twenties has stuck with me through all the years (not unlike the league itself), so much so that its user ID has even become my last.fm profile.

I’m not proud of the y and z twist, a choice driven by immediacy, flippancy, and ecstasy, but the overall concept was one that was big in my world view at the time — accident implied a normative otherness — and I appreciate the historic guidepost it provides for me to this day, not unlike a tattoo I suppose.

That, and yahoo! has been very good about minimizing spam.

So by a bit of happenstance (teehee) I lept from this friend’s enjoyable journey, to a link, to another that brought me to a kindred spirit: Koinzidenz. I’ll chalk it up to the wisdom of 51 years that gave him the konfidenz to leave out the Y.

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Next stop, Gay Marriage

Posted on June 13, 2008 by David

The nomination of Justice Roberts to the Supreme Court is the only respectable exercise of executive power this millenium that comes to my mind this Friday morning. An unapologetic right-winger, perhaps, but an intelligent, thoughtful man who genuinely believes in upholding the rule of law.

I stood by him in the nomination process as my fringier friends argued that the Democrats should use the Katrina leverage to force Bush’s hand to the left. Roberts, I argued, may be alligned with the right, but he is no hack.

I may have to retract that statement after reading his dissent in yesterday’s opinion upholding the virtues of habeas corpus (NOTE: they are not saying that the terrorists can run free–they are saying that people detained for more than six years can insist that the government show there is a reason for their detention).

Justice Roberts non-sequitur:

So who has won? Not the detainees. . . . And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.

Compare this to, say, the 2004 Republic Party Platform:

In the federal courts, scores of judges with activist backgrounds in the hard-left now have lifetime tenure. Recent events have made it clear that these judges threaten America’s dearest institutions and our very way of life. . . . We believe that the self-proclaimed supremacy of these judicial activists is antithetical to the democratic ideals on which our nation was founded.

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back in business.

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Tito

I can post, yes? YES!

…and upload music?
That Don’t Make It Junk

GREETINGS, BLOG-o-SHPERE:

I’ve recovered from the wordpress hijackers. More non-posting to come.

Thanks,
The Management.

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Chinese leaders are well aware

Posted on May 18, 2008 by David

The Times, without citation, seems to have some inside sources on the post-Mao government’s awareness.

On Monday, for instance, China’s response to the earthquake as constrasted with Myanmar’s to the cyclone:

With scenes of the calamitous cyclone in Myanmar still fresh — and the military government’s languid, xenophobic response earning it international scorn — China’s Communist Party leaders are keenly aware that their approach to the earthquake will be closely watched at home and abroad.

And this morning, China’s newfound openness as contrasted with Glasnost:

Chinese leaders are well aware of the Soviet experience. The bloody crackdown against the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989 seemed motivated in part by fears that a relaxation of repression would lead to a replay of Soviet turbulence in China.

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Smells Like Government

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Tito

All ages shows in Omaha? lazy-i breaks it down….

It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been to an Omaha City Council meeting, and in that time nothing has changed about the council chambers — the paneled décor, the dirty upholstered chairs, the institutional florescent lighting. The place even smells the same, a mixture of dust, mildewed paper, Brylcreem, toilet bowl deodorant and bureaucracy.

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