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2005:04:26:22:34. Tuesday. OH GOD OH GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE. The trailer for Joss Whedon's "Serenity" is on-line. Go watch it. It's honestly a toss-up as to whether this is my most highly anticipated space opera flick of the year.
2005:04:25:21:52. Monday. THE MISSING MIDDLE. One of the many unfortunate effects of the journalism of "balance" is that when one party is taking actions that are legitimately extreme -- threatening the lives of judges, trying to eliminate the filibuster, etc. -- the other party will also be described as "extreme" no matter what it's doing. In responding to this Ron Brownstein column about the potential for an independent, centrist candidate in 2008, "moderate" liberal blogger Kevin Drum reads "The result is that both parties are offering policies and messages aimed primarily at their core supporters" as "both Democrats and Republicans are pandering...heavily to their extreme wings these days." Honestly, I found the Brownstein piece through Drum's post, and I initially presumed the column would be yet another polemic about how those Washington insiders Just Don't Get It. Instead, it was a reasonable, though highly flawed attempt to examine the lay of the land for 2008 (the flaws come in finding John McCain and Bob Kerrey either "centrist" or "independent"). Brownstein's idea is that the Internet would allow such a hypothetical candidate to find his or her constituency directly, quickly and cheaply. Step 1? Start blog! Step 2? ???! Step 3? Profit! Drum is rightly skeptical, but his skepticism is based as much on what he perceives as the general lack of centrist grassroots and the nature of the Internet as anything else. To support his "pandering to the extreme" thesis, Drum shows us that the center has been abandoned: "regardless of their actual policy positions, Howard Dean and MoveOn succeeded on the internet by pushing strident political rhetoric, not calm moderation." Regardless of the actual policy positions? Wouldn't centrist policy positions be the hallmark of a centrist candidate? I highly doubt Brownstein is using "centrist" and "moderate" to refer to somebody who will be less than strident in proposing immoderate policy positions. Here, as usual, Drum is showing everyone his bonafides as the self-appointed conscience of the liberal blogging community. Has he really drunk the "Howard Dean is an extremist" Kool-Aid? It seems unlikely, but what else explains a post like this? If the center has been abandoned -- and for all intents and purposes, it has -- it is because Republicans have succeeded by abandoning it, and Democrats are trying to ape that strategy. The GOP has moved as a bloc to the right, and drug the rest of the spectrum with it; liberal Democrats have held fast on the left, while conservative and corporatist Democrats have occasionally crossed the abyss to try to make peace. But those Democrats are crossing all the way, back and forth; they're not setting up camp in the middle.
2005:04:22:18:07. Friday. WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? From Barry Goldwater, the man upon whose back Richard Nixon developed the "Southern Strategy," and whose ideological legacy swept Ronald Reagan into power:
However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
Please compare and contrast with John Kerry, the man from whose shattered shell the modern Democratic Party must emerge:
I am sick and tired of [them saying] they somehow have a better understanding of Christianity, of the Judeo-Christian ethic, of values. We're talking about values? You show me where in the New Testament Jesus ever talked about the value of having taxes and taking money from poor people to give to the rich people in this country.
We are faithful, but. We are faithful, but. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How dare they? Who do they think they are? Have they, at long last, no sense of decency left? Right, right, right. As long as we allow, as a given, the idea that policy should come from Jesus, just as long as we can figure out the "correct" interpretation of Jesus, we will always lose. ALWAYS LOSE.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2005:04:18:13:48. Monday. ANAL BLEACHING. ANAL BLEACHING? HUH. ANAL BLEACHING. Anal bleaching is the hot new trend, according to this anecdotal evidence from Oz:
"In the last couple of months I've had a lot of requests, so I've started some experiments," says Sydney beautician Anna Marsiano from The Bees' Knees salon.
"I've got one client who's a divorced woman with a couple of kids. She was looking at a Playboy magazine with her new boyfriend and he was making some comments about how clean and light the women looked. My client started to get a little paranoid." Marsiano says she uses a herbal brand popular in the Philippines as a facial whitener. It is applied to the dark pigmentation around women's rectums as well as to their vaginal areas. Marsiano says the product does not damage the skin and has "rejuvenating" properties. But another Sydney beautician, asked about her anal lightening equipment, produces a completely different product altogether. It's a cream that clearly states it is designed to be used on hair. This beautician has treated sex workers and strippers for years, but says mainstream demand has risen sharply over the past six months. She acknowledges that her long-term clients (many of whom come in for treatments every six weeks) suffer serious skin problems. "I explain that it will give them eczema and so on, but they want it anyway," she says. So that's the news from down under.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2005:04:17:11:48. Sunday. NONCOMMERCIAL USE. More bullshit from All Music Guide:
Through traffic monitoring of our websites we have identified your IP address accessing allmusic.com at a rate and speed inconsistent with the noncommercial and personal use permitted by our site's Terms of Service. As a result, further access to allmusic.com has been denied. Because IP addresses can be shared by numerous users, your access may be being denied based on the aggregate use of your IP address rather than your own individual use. To ensure that this is not the case, simply create your own individual user account by becoming a Registered Member of allmusic. [Click on the "Register" button in the upper right hand corner of the home page.] Once you've become a Registered Member and are logged in, you will once again have full access to allmusic, and will continue to have access, as long as your usage remains consistent with our Terms of Service. If you are already a Registered Member of allmusic, simply ensure that you are logged in when you use the site. Thank you.
This is the new message that AMG delivers to you if you try to access information about four different albums in less than two minutes, without being registered and logged in. (One reason you may not be logged in is that AMG's new site is complete shit for handling cookies, and thus refuses to automatically recognize you whenever you access the site.) It's examples like this, where there is obvious demand and absolutely no competent supply, which cause me to distrust the free market system.
2005:04:15:20:44. Friday. ENMESHED. Cass Sunstein, in today's Los Angeles Times, aggregates the recent activities of the Rapture Right and comes to the proper conclusion: "What we are seeing, for the first time, is a fundamental challenge to the rule of law itself."
But now we are witnessing a third wave of attack, in which originalism is receding, and in which many conservative politicians want judges to read the Constitution, and the law in general, as if it fits with the Republican Party platform. After all, Republican presidents have succeeded in reconstructing the federal judiciary so that it is dominated by handpicked GOP appointees. Liberal activism is dying if not dead. Why shouldn't Republicans take advantage of their dominance of the judiciary to ensure that their preferred policies are implemented by courts?
The problem, as the legal battle over Terri Schiavo demonstrated, is that whatever their politics, judges are unlikely to ignore the law. In that case, the law clearly did not authorize federal judges to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted � but some Republicans are outraged that the judges did not have it reinserted anyway. On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay instructed the Judiciary Committee to investigate federal court decisions in the Schiavo case. The attack on the judges who refused to order the feeding tube reinserted may be trivial by itself. But it is of a piece with something much more important. In recent years, some conservative politicians have been insisting that federal judges should strike down affirmative action programs, protect commercial advertising, invalidate environmental regulations, allow the president to do whatever he likes in the war on terrorism, use the Constitution to produce tort reform, invalidate gun control regulation, invalidate campaign finance laws and much more � regardless of whether they can find solid justification for these steps in our founding document. Sen. Bill Frist is setting out on his 2008 Presidential bid with an appearance on a telecast a week from Sunday, in which he will denounce Democrats as "against people of faith." Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn have issued threats against judges serious enough to prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to increase their security detail. Guess what? Turns out the revolution is being televised after all. Just turn to one of those unbearable Christian channels, sit back and wait for it all to be over.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2005:04:14:20:08. Thursday. OPEN LETTER #4. Dear the Shins and Interpol, You're still indie bands, so quit charging $25 for t-shirts and $15 for records that I can get for less at Best Buy, Amazon or your own labels' websites. Love,
2005:04:14:20:04. I QUIT. Yup, that's the end of Kelly and her perv-talking days (and nights).
posted by 2005:04:12:12:56. Tuesday. THAT'S THAT DONE. Russ Feingold's getting a divorce, so everybody who thought the Democratic Party had a super-duper new white knight coming to McGovernize things can cool out. He may still run in 2008, but unless he's remarried, he doesn't stand a chance. Americans tend to be surprisingly tolerant of divorced public figures, but not single ones.
2005:04:03:22:30. Sunday. HAPPENINGS. Zöe has laid some eggs.
Franny has eaten some apple.
We have visited the Forevertron.
That is all.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2005:04:02:19:22. Saturday. THE WORLD MOURNS!!!!! OMFG!!!1!!!1! The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2005:04:02:13:42. Q1: QUICK NOTES. The first three months of 2005 have gone by, so let's assess where the year's new music market is at. First of all, my two favorite albums of 2005 won't even be released for another month and a half or more. Troubled Hubble's Making Beds in a Burning House is out on May 17, and Motion City Soundtrack's Commit This to Memory follows on June 7. Beyond that, the new LP's from Hot Hot Heat and Gatsby's American Dream are still not officially out until later this month. Those are all great, and I'm sure I'll discuss them at greater length in the coming months.
2005:04:01:17:13. Friday. ALL DAY I DREAM ABOUT SALES. In 2004, 40% of the songs to hit the Billboard top 20 mentioned at least one product brand; all but one of those was a hip-hop track. Looking at these findings from Agenda Inc.'s American Brandstand project, it's easy to see why McDonald's publically offered rappers cash to plug the Big Mac in their lyrics. On the other hand, it's hard to see modern hip-hop as much of anything beyond a way for rich, white people to get poor (at least before they make it big), black people to sell shit to other poor, black people. Top of the list for the year? Cadillac, edging out six other car brands in the top ten. Some weird ones -- Cool Whip tied for 29th, and Kaybee and Toys 'r' Us both tied for 50th.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
