"Rock the Casbah..."

It's been entirely too long since I last posted, and much has happened, with probably the most important thing being the election, protests, and violent retaliation in Iran. So far, Radley Balko has best summarized my feelings about the goings-on.

We may never know with 100 percent certainty whether the election was fixed, though it sure seems that way. But one thing we sure as hell know now, the Iranian government’s reaction to those protesting the results has shown it to be wholly and morally illegitimate.

In an odd way, this feels to me vaguely akin to how folks must have felt in the 1960s, watching the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protesters march through the streets. And similar to the footage of the Viet Cong prisoner being summarily executed, we have the woman they're calling Neda, shot to death, bleeding out on the pavement. (You must watch it; my eyes will never be the same and still haven't evacuated all their tears.)

And what to do, as Americans thousands of miles away? As George Will says, "The people on the streets know full well what the American attitude toward the regime is." (Thankfully Will is ever the pragmatic and not partisan conservative.) Certainly the people know we are not fans of the Iranian regime, but is that enough? Should they not also be aware that we support their, indeed any, stands for freedom and justice? Hopefully they are. But how do we stand with them while maintaining our own national interests? Should those interests even be a factor when standing up to oppression? (I don't see how they could not.) Above all, is there anything we can do to end the violence?

There are more questions than answers, but one thing is for certain: Iran, and the world, will never be the same.

(There is of course the lingering question, not directly related to the incidents in Iran, of whether we Americans would still have the drive, the motivation, the chutzpah to stand up to governmental oppression. Seems to me these days we tend to shout best with the printed word, to gather in support by posting links across blogs. Which is all well and good, I suppose, but I think it would be nice to march for once.)

"At times like these, it's obvious..."

Yep. Couldn't have said it better myself. (H/T: Jacob.)

Let the arguments begin in the comments section (assuming anyone still visits this rarely-updated POS blog). And please, though I'm aware of Godwin's Law, don't compare anyone to Hitler. Jeff has an excellent post as to why.

"Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
Throw up your arms into the sky,
When it's time to live and let die"
- Green Day, 21 Guns

"I guess she spent her last quarter randomly..." - Music of 2009 Q1

In lieu of my usual end-of-year musical summaries, which are always a lot to take in, I am hoping to start a new trend of quarterly music summaries. (Admittedly, I'm already a month behind on this one.) The goal is to minimize the amount of reading material while maximizing the potential for those who spot something intriguing or something they were iffy on to discover a great album (or avoid a not-so-great one).

Discerning readers will immediately notice that not all of these albums came out in 2009 Q1. The list is more intended to capture my listening experience these first three months, rather than highlight new music only.

And yes, I think in quarterly terms now. I guess the corporate world has officially taken me over.

Recommended:

• Army Navy, Army Navy - sunny, fuzzy guitar pop that's infectious as hell. Nothing overly remarkable, but I can't stop listening.
  Recommended tracks: "Dark as Days", "Sleight of Hand", "In the Lime".
  
• The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love - it's the Decemberists and it's a concept album. What else do you need to know? Why don't you have this yet?
  Recommended tracks: "Won't Want for Love", "The Wanting Comes in Waves", "The Rake's Song".
  
• The National, The National - re-release of their debut album. Not as spectacular as Boxer or Alligator but that's a lot to expect.
  Recommended tracks: "The Perfect Song", "American Mary", "Theory of the Crows".
  
• NODZZZ, NODZZZ - lo-fi garage rock for the ADD. I'm not sure there's a song here over three minutes, but they're all catchy and leave you wanting more.
  Recommended tracks: "Is She There, "In the City", "I Can't Wait".
  
• U2, No Line on the Horizon - on a par with ATYCLB and way beyond HTDAAB, U2 fan extraordinaire Bill Gates described it as a journey through U2's entire evolution as a band.
  Recommended tracks: "Magnificent", "Moment of Surrender", "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight".
  

Decent But Unremarkable:

• Blue October, Approaching Normal - lacks the raw power of Consent or the heart and variety of Foiled. But it's still Blue, so there's enough quality for a few spins.
  Recommended tracks: "Kangaroo Cry", "Dirt Room".
  
• Cut Off Your Hands, You & I - completely adequate Brit pop-rock, but nothing more.
  Recommended tracks: "Turn Cold", "Heartbreak".
  
• Dark Was the Night - solid compilation of the quieter side of indie rock. Sometimes too quiet, but oh well. No surprise my favorite songs here are from bands I love already.
  Recommended tracks: "So Far Around the Bend" (the National), "Well Alright" (Spoon).
  
• Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand - more of what you'd expect from the assassinated archduke of Austria. Better than their second, close to their first.
  Recommended tracks: "No You Girls", "What She Came For".
  
• The Lonely Island, Incredibad - a hip hop/R&B/comedy album from the same talented humor group that brings us SNL's Digital Shorts. Hilarious stuff, but doesn't invite lots of additional listens.
  Recommended tracks (and videos): "I'm On a Boat", "Lazy Sunday".
  
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - if the Cure met My Bloody Valentine in a bar, this would probably be the bastard child.
  Recommended tracks: "This Love is Fucking Right", "Come Saturday".
  
• A.C. Newman, Get Guilty - second album from the driving force behind the New Pornographers. You'll miss their harmonies and Neko, but not the great melodies.
  Recommended tracks: "Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer", "All of My Days and All of My Days Off".
  
• Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream - Bruce and the E Street Band doing what they've always done, but it feels like it was better 20 years ago (or even on 2007's Magic). For die-hard devotees only.
  Recommended tracks: "Working on a Dream", "The Wrestler".
  

Stay Away From:

• Glasvegas - I can't say there's not quality music here, and a few songs ("Geraldine", "Go Square Go") will garner repeat listens, but other tracks turn me off of this album.
  
• The Shaky Hands, Lunglight - listened once, was very "meh" about it, so I never returned.
  

Potential highlights of 2009 Q2 include: the Hold Steady, the Thermals, Crystal Antlers, Silversun Pickups, Death Cab for Cutie (EP), Green Day, White Rabbits, Iron & Wine, Grizzly Bear, Wilco (may it be better than their last), Dead Weather (Ben, you've probably never heard of them, but they feature Jack White on drums), Sonic Youth, Rock Plaza Central, Dinosaur Jr., Third Eye Blind, the Lemonheads, Sunset Rubdown, and theoretically Five Dollar Friend. Yep, lots of upcoming music folks. Get excited!

"I never try to find you
I hope you don't remember me
I hope you're not alone"
- the National, The Perfect Song

"What do you want me to say?"

Wow, way to guilt trip me Post. Yeesh.

Did it ever occur to anyone that if people, government and corporations, were acting fiscally responsible in the first place, none of this would have happened? Sigh...

(Just watch, now I'm probably gonna lose my job tomorrow for having the audacity of claiming I have job security and fiscal responsibility.)

On another note, I'd like to request a moment of blog silence for the 32 Hokies that died two years ago today.

...

And that's all I have to say about that. As Jeff said, "What is it about April, anyway?"

"Tonight bright stars are shining for you
Oceans and full moons, deep midnight blue"
- Sun Kil Moon, Tonight the Sky

(Bonus points to anyone who gets why that lyric suddenly occurred to me.)

"I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere..."

Looks like I'm starting a tradition of sharing semi-profound but more accurately subversive thoughts on Good Friday. Last year, I took issue with the very concept of Christians calling the day Christ died "good" (even though ultimately its outcome was). This year I want to talk about Judas (Iscariot, the one who betrayed Jesus, not Thaddeus, who was unfairly maligned by his namesake). For 2000 years, the name Judas has been synonymous with ultimate betrayal. And rightfully so. But something occurred to me about a while back: if Judas hadn't betrayed Jesus, would Christianity even exist? Wasn't it essential to the salvation of mankind that Jesus be crucified by the Romans, that at that moment he could absorb the sins of all mankind, that by a belief in him they might be saved? And if this is true, does Judas, traitor though he may be, not ultimately play a positive role in these proceedings?

Then of course there's the theory (seen in the Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, and apparently borne out in the Gospel of Judas and elsewhere) that Judas was in fact Jesus's dearest friend, and that Jesus asked him to bear the burden of being the one who betrays him. It's an interesting concept, one that at least bears consideration today.

But anyway, Christians, enjoy (?) your Good Friday. (What do people generally do on Good Friday anyway? Growing up, I don't recall doing anything in particular. Oh well.)

"Judas ain't the only one
Who couldn't live with what he'd done
But if he hadn't, would you still be saved?"
- the Ultimate Self-Indulgence, My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma

"Freedom no longer frees you..."

Some news fragments courtesy of The Agitator.

Fledgling democracy Iraq has decided to exercise the apparent will of the people by executing gays.

Meanwhile, established democracy the United States of America attempts to reenact Kafka's "The Trial".

Incidentally, where are we going and why am I in this hand basket?

(In lighter news, I hope to have a Q1 music review up some time soon. Stay tuned.)

"And you said go to hell
And then I did"
- Deep Ella, I Don't Care

"You must have been so high..."

I agree, President Obama: legalizing marijuana is not a good strategy to grow our economy. No, legalizing marijuana is a good strategy to: relieve stress on our crowded prisons, reduce police corruption and urban violence, focus law enforcement attention on more egregious crimes, and promote individual freedom of choice. And, oh, by the way, we could also turn the billions of dollars wasted enforcing this unjust law into billions of dollars in tax revenue, which might help the economy just a little bit. Even if that's dead last on the list of reasons, and it is for me, it's still a better reason than any I've heard to keep it illegal. And instead you dismiss the notion out of hand.

I know people who voted for you, President Obama, based on the assumption that, even if you would not necessarily push for marijuana legalization or decriminalization, you would adopt a reasoned approach to the idea. None of those people do drugs. The fact that you dismiss their questions and concerns with a pretty lame joke about their assumed recreational habits is shameful and disturbing. I hope the incomprehensible laughter was worth it.

Radley Balko has more, including that apparently that whole "calling off medical marijuana raids" thing was utter bullshite.

In the meantime, President Obama, I would like to know this: why should other people be penalized for doing something that you yourself admitted to illegally doing in the past?

"We are broken, we are bitter, we're the problem,
We're the Politicians
Watching for our sky to get torn apart"
- Switchfoot, Politicians

"What have you done Mark David Chapman?"

...well, apparently you didn't kill John Lennon!

According to a van I drove by on US 19 this morning, John Lennon was killed by ... wait for it ... Stephen King.

This white van seemed very intent on spreading the word to the masses, what with the black lettering covering it saying "Stephen King Killed John Lennon" and pointing to its website, which I won't dignify with naming or linking to. So just in case anyone doubted there are some seriously crazy people in this world, there you have it. (Now I know why they call US 19 the most dangerous road in America.)

Speculation as to what Stephen King's motive could have possibly been, as well as why he would have then apparently hired a guy named Mark David Chapman to stand over Lennon's body reading from The Catcher in the Rye until he was apprehended, may be placed in the comments.

"Instant karma's gonna get you..."
- John Lennon, Instant Karma

"Sticks and stones, baby, break your bones..."

Okay, first things first: I don't believe the President of the United States belongs on a late-night talk show. Period. This belief has nothing to do with these shows' propensity for telling jokes many would consider "off-color" (and many others, including myself, generally just consider "unfunny"). It's simply that I like to believe that POTUS has better things to do with his/her time than appear on late-night TV shows. I certainly have better things to do with my time than watch them. Like read. Or sleep.

That having been said, the aspect of President Obama's "Tonight Show" appearance last night that most people are and will be focusing on is not the fact that he should be leading the nation rather than yukking it up with Jay Leno, but rather the Special Olympics gaffe, which I am going to rather uncreatively dub "Specialgate" (I also considered "Gutterballgate" since the comment was related to Obama's poor bowling skills).

The first I heard of it was on Facebook when Ploeger asked the amusing question, "Who loaded the "Special Olympics" comment in the teleprompter?" The comments on the status dismissed it as "an offhand remark" but also pointed out that Dubya would have been flayed alive for such a remark. (Ploeger's retorts to these comments were that the President is supposed to be a reflection of American ideals and if those ideals include making fun of the disabled well then that's just sad, which is true, and that Dubya probably would have mispronounced "Special Olympics", which is untrue but amusing.) (Also, I don't ever recall President Bush making a late-night TV appearance during his term of office, probably because, and this will likely be the only time I ever say this, he has more sense than that.) Ahem, anyway: both points are valid and probably merit discussion.

First off, to Obama's credit, he seems to have immediately recognized the inappropriateness of the comment and called Tim (Corporal? Lieutenant?) Shriver to apologize and further extend an olive branch by inviting Special Olympians to the White House. Is it enough? I don't know. I'd be curious to hear Aaron's thoughts... (Perhaps a good time to end the blogging hiatus, Turtle? Hmm? :)

Anyway, credit having been given where credit is due, on to the discussion: while I do not buy into the whole "liberal media" conspiracy B.S. spouted by many conservatives (notably Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign), I do acknowledge they are generally at least slightly left-of-center. So it's pretty hard to argue that the media wouldn't have been pretty merciless with George W. Bush here. (I will be extremely curious, for example, how Jon Stewart handles this on Monday's "Daily Show". Certainly he would have eviscerated Dubya in similar circumstances. As a side note, here's an interesting article about Stewart I got from, as usual, Jacob.) It will be interesting to see how they handle it in general. Personally, I predict that FOX News will begin calling for impeachment, CNN (particularly leading candidate for devil incarnate Nancy Grace) will discuss how the comments relate to the latest missing attractive white girl, and MSNBC will proclaim that Obama made the statement to draw attention to such a wonderful cause and then take a commercial break while Chris Matthews cleans his shorts. Again.

As to the comment that it was an offhand remark, a failed attempt at casual humor, it's pretty clear that this is the case. What's more troubling is what that means. Who among us can say we've never cracked a "short bus" joke? Hell, I've callously referred to handicapped parking spots as "cripple spots". In my mind, I defend this as my own personal retaliation against the modern, overly politically corrected parlance, but is this really an excuse? People I care about use handicapped spots. What is the cause of such insensitivity? Is it a symptom of a larger national tendency or is it merely human nature? Or am I just making too big a deal out of it?

Ultimately, the incident will - and probably should - fall by the wayside. There are more important things to worry about. Which does beg the question of why I just spent a ridiculous rambling post talking about it. Yeah, well. Shut up.

P.S. As a follow-up to a previous post: Yay! (H/T: The Agitator.)

"Believe me when I call and I say
The next girl that I love wont be a saint"
- Army Navy, Saints

"These are just words, and words are okay..."

As someone who performed the descriptively-named role of "Son" in the Steve Martin-penned play "WASP" in college, this story of defiance in the face of censorship puts a rather large smile on my face. (H/T: Jacob.) Not much to say about it, other than Steve Martin is awesome.

Side note: our performance of the play is memorable for many reasons, including: a) it's where I first met Zhubin; b)
it earned Jeff the nickname "the guy with the laugh due to his noticeable enjoyment of our performance; and c) set construction caused me missing the second half of the Vanderbilt-Kentucky game that year, the only football game I ever missed a single minute of while attending Vandy. (We ran to Vandy-Barnard to watch the final heartbreaking minutes of the game on TV, which if memory serves involved Zhubin swearing a lot. That game kept us from bowl eligibility in 1999. I can't help but believe that if I had been there it would have been different. Oh well, it just made this year's Music City Bowl that much sweeter. In other news, my God, that was 1999!)

"And if I forget you I'll have nobody left to forget
I guess that's what assholes get"
- the National, Theory of the Crows

"And so all over creation the culture of death became a celebrated rule of law..."

Some states are apparently considering doing away with the death penalty because it costs too much. Though I usually do involve it at some point, cost tends to fall pretty much at the bottom of my arguments against the death penalty, shortly after: it fails as a deterrent, the judicial system is not infallible (i.e., there's always a risk of executing an innocent), and, of course, Hammurabi died a looooong effing time ago. But still, the ends justify the reasoning behind achieving them.

(H/T: The Agitator.)

I'm betting absolutely no one will get the song reference in this post's title. Prove me wrong, children. Prove me wrong. (More people will get that reference.)

"Go to sleep now, you little fool
You'll not feel the drowning"
- the Decemberists, The Island

"Hey! Don't come around here no more..."

You have no idea how immensely glad I am to see the Washington Redskins on this list. Knowing owner Daniel Snyder's propensity to throw money at all the wrong places, I was afraid we'd be first in line for T.O. once he became available. Sometimes I love being wrong. Given how T.O., despite his immense on-field talents, has proven to be a plague to just about every team he's ever joined, I'm not entirely sure who would want him.

(Incidentally, though we overpaid for him, I'm still pleased that Albert Haynesworth will be shredding the grounds at the Fed this year -- he may not be $100 million formidable, but he's still pretty damn formidable.)

"I cherish with fondness the day before I met you"
- Los Campesinos!, My Year in Lists

"Going down to the swamp..."

I haven't commented much on Vandy's basketball season, largely because there hasn't been much to comment on, but I felt like last night's victory over #11 LSU merited a "VANDY! VANDY! OH HELL YEAH!" Hopefully this keeps whatever meager tournament chances we have alive.

Better yet, the old Slant mates Banecker and Collazzi were there cheering the Dores on. Apparently Collazzi wore a Freije jersey, which is just awesome.

"Oh God, do not deny her
It's not if I believe in love
But if love believes in me"
- U2, Moment of Surrender

"Gimmee some salt, gimmee some salt, gimmee gimmee gimmee..."

When I first saw this article about "Christian salt", my first thought was that it must come from Lot's wife. Just thought I would share that with y'all. (Seriously, are there people who don't think that when they hear the phrase "Christian salt"?)

(H/T: Jacob)

Update: I swear I posted this before FARK made the same joke.

Literature quote of the day:
"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
      So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

"Sometimes I wanna get you low..."

Hey, let's appease Muslims while pissing off short Christians!

So what, now people like myself aren't afforded any sort of spiritual guidance without help of a stepstool or ladder? And you wonder why we become agnostics...

Not to mention, the children! Won't someone please think of the children?

(H/T: Jacob, as usual.)

"I had a drink the other day
Opinions were like kittens, I was giving them away"
- Modest Mouse, Out of Gas

"There's nothing you can know that isn't known..."

It amazes me that we actually needed an academic study to figure this out. I mean, honestly, I don't know of any men who are anything less than blatantly obvious about being attracted to a woman, even when they think they are being subtle. FARK put it best: "First sign a man is interested in sex: he is awake." Further, I think we can all agree that women are pretty much impossible to read.

On the other hand, it's good to know we men have evolved at least a little bit.

Anyway, that's your obligatory Maybe Next Year Day post for 2009. Enjoy!

"Only a real man can be a lover
If he had hands to lend us all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another"
- Sufjan Stevens, The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts

"So much for so much more..."

The only piece of remotely decent economic news over the past two weeks, in the wake of an ever-plummeting stock market and the injection of fear-mongering into the economic shitulus package (I also like Jeff's term "scamulus" - say, how many different ways can we explain the utter suckage of the stimulus package in faux-words?), was the pending appointment of Senator Judd Gregg, a fiscal conservative (and it sure seems like we need at least one in this administration), as commerce secretary.

Well, damn.

I don't know much about Gregg beyond his reputation as an economic conservative and free trader. But that was enough for me for a commerce secretary. I also liked the message of actual bipartisanship contained in his appointment.

Oh well.

"Either you tell the truth and leave here
Or I ain't never coming back"
- No Address, Never Coming Back

"The times, they are a-changin'..."

No, wait: they're staying exactly the same.

I've been trying to collect my thoughts about this travesty, but I've decided that Jeff sums it up best. I had a sneaking suspicion Obama would back off some of his foreign policy rhetoric as soon as he got his first intelligence briefing and realized how crazy things really are, but still, this is a bit much.

I know it's only been three weeks, but between an economic stimulus that my great-grandchildren will be paying for and a blatantly broken promise about government transparency, I'd say the new administration is off to a simply smashing start.

I take solace in the fact that John McCain (or Hillary Clinton, for that matter) would have done exactly the same thing. (Bob Barr wouldn't have, but that's neither here nor there.)

In conclusion: fuck! (You may take that as an exclamation or an imperative as you see fit.)

Update: Gene Healy pretty much sums up my feelings about modern presidential power. (H/T: Jacob.)

"So you told me the other day that you wanna change the world
So you told me the other day that you wanna be the president"
- Jimmy B and the Fortune 500, Black and White

"Still crazy after all these years..."

It warms the cockles of my heart (and what the hell is a "cockle" anyway?) to know that, years later, Vanderbilt students are aware of, and still talking about, the "Gee Dead" incident.

Apparently, The Slant printed this memorial article as part of another fake Hustler. How creative. At least this time, they did it with Chris Carroll's permission (something it honestly never occurred to us to do. Now I can't help wondering if he'd have said "yes"). They also had to steal the Hustler templates instead of painstaking creating them from scratch, as we (by which I mean Brad Ploeger) did. (You can see the actual fake Hustler here. I love the inclusion of Thes Lant in the Rites lineup, a throwback to another Slant prank from 2005.)

In keeping with the tradition of fake Hustlers providing false information, there are several inaccuracies in the "Remembering 'Gee Dead'" article. First, it was a Tuesday, not a Monday (apparently, the Hustler prints Mon-Wed-Fri now instead of Tues-Fri, so it's easy to understand the mixup). Second, like I said, the template wasn't "obtained", it was reconstructed by Ploeger's talented eye. Third, we didn't misspell the title as "Huslter" to avoid copyright issues, we did it to make fun of the Hustler's propensity to have typos (though in retrospect if copyright was also an issue, I'm glad we did). The author also left out one of my favorite "errors", the jump to nowhere (which did actually occur in one issue of the Hustler).

Finally, and most egregiously, there's no mention of me. But oh well. (More egregiously, there's no mention of Ploeger, who was the major driving force, but oh well.)

Anyway, I'm glad to know that The Slant hasn't given up pranking the students. And I'm also glad to know the students are still naive enough to fall for it.

UPDATE: Right after I posted this, I noticed that David Barzelay posted several of my above corrections on the article itself. I'm particularly amused that he used the same phrase, "painstakingly created", as I did. I swear that's just an amusing coincidence.

"But I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers
Still crazy after all these years"
- Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years

Peyton Manning's latest fail

Apparently angry at his 6 career playoff one-and-dones, Peyton Manning decided to throw Jay Cutler's blood sugar monitor into a pool. Latent Volunteer-Commodore rivalry? Perhaps. But a hilarious FAIL nonetheless.

"I put your favorite records on and sit around
It spins around and you're around again...
All's well in hell and here's hoping"
- the Wrens, She Sends Kisses

Phelps phollow-up

Kathleen Parker, who I always thought was a conservative but whatever, has an opinion piece in today's Washington Post about the inherent ridiculousness and hypocrisy in the national reaction to the recent Michael Phelps scandal. Not nearly as hilarious as Radley Balko's rant, but probably more likely to appeal to people who haven't already figured out that our marijuana laws, and the enforcement thereof, are antiquated and should be repealed.

Favorite quote:

Once a kid realizes that pot doesn't make him insane -- or likely to become a burrito taster, as the ad further asserts -- he might figure other drug information is equally false. That's how marijuana becomes a gateway drug.

Still not convinced? How about this tale of a marijuana bust gone horribly wrong? Warning: it's quite emotionally draining. It probably took me a good hour to recover from reading it. Though it may be easier for cat people.

America, please: it's time to put an end to this national travesty. Hell, tack on a rider that abolishes all anti-marijuana (or hell, even anti-possession) legislation, and I'd even support the economic stimulus package currently before the Senate. (You know, the one that has no chance of providing actual economic stimulus, and makes the bailout look like sound fiscal policy because at least it stands a chance of recovering some if not all of the government's expenditure? Yeah, that one.)

Legalization: now that's change I could believe in.

"Time after time, it's the same old wrong
You change and you change, it's the same old song"
- Virgos Merlot, Gain