Politics
Ours is The Best Government Money Can Buy
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- Tuesday 21st July 2009
Change Congress and Lawrence Lessig have it 100% right; as long as private money is allowed in the US government, we’re screwed.
Today’s evidence:
1) Want the Republican right-wing think tanks to justify your position? Only 2 million dollars!
2) Banks and Wall Street financial concerns buy Republican Party’s support with campaign contributions. Coupla Democrats in there with their…
Thoughts on Life
What’s the difference between a journalist and a stenographer?
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- Monday 20th July 2009
These days, they’re the same thing.
As Steven Colbert said at the White House Press Association Dinner when he was ripping Bush and the assembled sycophantic media workers new assholes: “Your job is to copy down what you’re told to write, then go home at 6 PM and play with your kids.”
And journalists wonder why newspapers are going out of business?
In Glenn Greenwald’s review of…
Music & Sound
Expanded liner notes for the “Beat Rock” comp I did for Vibrations Magazine (at last!)
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- Sunday 19th July 2009
The very first thing I’d recommend you do is immediately get hold of a book called Unsung Heroes Of Rock’N Roll, by Nick Tosches (who’s also written several other outstanding music books, among them Where Dead Voices Gather, about the extraordinary musician Emmet Miller, and Hellfire, a biblical biography of Jerry Lee Lewis).
Other excellent books about the early days/birth of rock are Making…
Copyright
The Day ASCAP threatened to sue the Girl Scouts for singing around the campfire; Barbie’s hooker origins; and other true tales of copyright.
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- Wednesday 8th July 2009
I haven’t read the book Brand Name Bullies yet, but based on these excerpts, you know I will.
“In 1996, ASCAP decided that that since hotels, restaurants, funeral homes and resorts pay for the right to “perform” recorded music, and since many summer camps resemble resorts, why shouldn’t they pay too? Under copyright law, a public performance occurs “where a substantial number of persons…
Music & Sound
DJ Food reappears with a bang
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- Tuesday 7th July 2009
Strictly Kev has a new website, a new EP, and a new…
Politics
Excellent article on press coverage (or the lack of it) of the health care debate in Columbia Journalism Review
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- Tuesday 7th July 2009
Trudy Lieberman, an associate editor of CJR and health reporter for Consumers Union and Consumer Reports, writes in her essay Groundhog Day in the latest CJR of the striking similiarities in reporting of the health care debate in 2009 to the Clinton effort in 1993.
The argument that this reporting rigs the debate and therefore effects public perception of the options is well-made; it recalls…
Thoughts on Life
Now, I’m not saying I know anything about this, but…
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- Tuesday 30th June 2009
…but if I did, I’d think this site was rather amazing.
Blotter acid artwork. Lots of it.
Hold my calls,…
Thoughts on Life
Bottle caps
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- Tuesday 2nd June 2009
That’s right; bottle caps.
Found by Accidental…
Politics
The American military’s religious crusade against Islam, and everyone else. For real. With video.
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- Tuesday 2nd June 2009
Jeff Sharlet, writing in this month’s Harper’s, writes calmly and well about the scariest shit you can imagine: the takeover of the United States military by evangelical Christians.
“When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own…
Politics
A short interview with Republican spin doctor #1
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- Thursday 28th May 2009
Meet Frank Luntz, the man who puts the twisted words in the mouths of the Republican Party (when their feet aren’t in there).
Excerpted from the NY Times:
Your new 28-page memo, “The Language of Health Care,” was sent to Republicans in Congress and recommends that they speak about health care reform in ominous phrases. For instance, you suggest that they refer to “a Washington…
