Maybe it's not a coincidence, maybe he too has been waiting to gay marry?
Anyway, this is sort of ambivalent news I guess, since we're still a few retirements from changing the composition of the stupid stupid Supreme Court. However, I am really excited about the Republican circus that could result from this week's newly filibuster-proof Democratic majority. Assuming that Barack gets through his first choice, I think it's obvious that soon all marriages will be at least 65% gay by law.
Have you seen Souter recently, by the way? I'm used to this photo, which makes him look sort of sprightly, if a bit gray. Well, apparently this photo is circa 1990, because today he looks like he has been partially reconstructed from pieces of an old baseball mitt.
Being completely broke, I am cancelling my subscription to eMusic. Looking back, I guess I've never gotten much out of it anyway. So I'm downloading my last 40 songs, and I decided to download Ma Rainey's Black Bottom because it has "Shave 'Em Dry Blues" and I like that song.
Three days later, I get an email in my inbox: "How did you like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom?" Um, just fine, thanks?
For my own odd reasons I am calling LA County's 211 service today . . . and the first thing you get on the menu is, "For information regarding Swine Flu, press . . . "
Is it just me, or is the constant stream of pandemics both completely boring and sort of suspect? I mean, I know people have died, but people die of all sorts of things all the time. Including communicable diseases. You know? I may be proven wrong: I felt the same way about natural disasters until the huge typhoon, followed by Hurricane K. Felt like a real creep back then.
Arlen Specter just made the switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. How does this read? The Republican Party has gone so far outside of the mainstream that their fogeys are starting to abandon ship? Or the Democrats, by virtue of the two party system and the Republican Party's insanity, is forced to cast such a wide net that it will never actually manage to come up with any sort of real political philosophy?
Also does this mean Specter will change his mind on the Employee Free Choice Act? Or will he still oppose it and use EFCA to demonstrate his continued independence from party politics?
So, in the year 2009, why is it even acceptable to parade young women around in an extra-fancy dog show on television? Right?
Anyway, in case anyone didn't see this, Miss California weighed in on the gay marriage debate during the Miss America pageant. As the various Misses always seem to do, Miss Golden State began her answer by indicating her own fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world works: she says that she is happy to live in a country where people can choose gay marriage or "opposite marriage." So either Miss California lives in Vermont or Miss California is technically quite stupid.
She follows up that gem with the assertion that, "In my country, in my family" marriage is between a man and a woman. No disrespect obviously, that's just the way we do things in my country/family.
Miss California is from San Diego. And this is what happens when you let people from San Diego out in public. I've said it for years, folks: Fresno-by-the-Sea.
One other thing: the person who asked the question was Perez Hilton. Props go to the guy for forcing a salient and important question onto the Annual Vapid Bullshit Parade, but honestly I had no idea he actually counted as a TV-worthy celebrity. I thought he was a mid-level Internet celebrity, somewhere between the Goatse guy (don't worry, no photo) and the Obama Girl. You know, way down in the lower echelons of fame, next to Malt-o-Meal in the cereal aisle.
So here's an important question about the United States circa 2009: how do we feel about Perez Hilton being a national pop culture figure? Keep in mind that this man is notable for only one reason - his website posts photos of drunk celebrities who have accidentally flashed their vaginas on the way out of the limo.
Apparently Perez Hilton later called Ms. Killer Cali a "bitch," and here she responds on MSNBC. The whole thing has the catty, gossipy feel of late high-school. Miss California is praying for Perez Hilton, Perez Hilton unapologizes to Miss California about calling her a bitch, only to up the ante by dropping a c-bomb on her startled ass. Then, Miss California is all like, "Well I have 4,000 friend requests on Facebook!" I am not joking. We later learn that an authority figure in the form of some higher-up at the Miss USA Ranch steps in and chastises Miss Blue Eyeshadow for being, you know, a prejudiced ass.
It bears mentioning that Miss Meth-Hub of Southern California looks like a freeze-dried weirdo throughout both clips.
David Simon was on Bill Moyers for an entire hour last week. I was listening to the podcast of it this morning while doing some tidying up around the house. I've heard David Simon twice before on NPR, and these interviews convinced me to check out The Wire after everyone told me "it's the perfect show for you" for two years. The man is smart - I'm not sure how the popular culture shitfunnel turned out someone quite this good. Maybe the popularity of serialized TV on HBO in the last decade incrementally improved the format to the point where it could accomodate such an intellect? Just a guess, I know nothing of these things.
But check out what he had to say on Moyers about the fate of print journalism. I think his perspective as a former journalist really rounds out the conventional wisdom, particularly in noting the pre-Internet shortcomings of the major newspapers' approach.
And this is not all the Internet . . . the general tone in journalism right now is that of martyrology: "We were doing our job making the world safe for democracy and all of the sudden terra firma shifted, new technology, who knew that the Internet was going to overwhelm us?"
I would buy that if I wasn't in journalism for the years that immediately preceeded the Internet. Because I took the third buyout from the Baltimore Sun. I was about reporter number 80 or 90 who left - in 1995, long before the Internet had its impact . . . . Those buyouts happened when the Baltimore Sun was earning 37% profits. We now know this because it's in bankruptcy and the books are open. Thirty-seven percent profits, and all that R&D money that was supposed to go into making newspapers more essential, more viable, more able to explain the complexities of the world, it went to shareholders in the Tribune Company, or the LA Times-Mirror Company before that.
And ultimately when the Internet did hit, they had an inferior product that was not essential enough that they could charge online for it. I mean, the guys who were running newspapers for the last 20 or 30 years have to be singular in the manner in which they destroyed their own industry. I mean, it's even more profound than Detroit making Chevy Vegas and Pacers and Gremlins and believing that no self-respecting American would buy a Japanese car in 1973. It's analagous up to a point, but it's not analagous in that a Nissan is a pretty good car and a Toyota is a pretty good car. The Internet, while it's great for commentary and froth, doesn't do much first generation reporting at all . . . The economic model doesn’t sustain that kind of reporting.
And to lose to that . . . they had contempt for their own product, these people, I mean how do you give it away for free? Listen, for twenty years . . . the ads were the God. And then all ofa sudden the ads weren’t there and the copy they’d had contempt for, they’d actually marginalized themselves by the time the Internet had its way.
Here's an interesting series on the future of urban journalism, from a urban problems blog called Where: "Notes on the Future of Urban Journalism," Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
Anyway, Jessica and I are making our way through the entire The Wire series, courtesy of Netflix. We're in the first third of Season 2, so if anyone wants to coordinate watching it with us, head on down to the 730.
If any of the four people who still read this have any interest, I wanted to say that the new Propagandhi record, "Supporting Caste," completely destroys, as expected.
No one out there on the Internet will tell you, so I thought I'd mention it. Punk music too earnest to be even noted by the Pitchfork crowd, music made my metalheads who were metalheads long before it was ironically cool to wear a token Venom t-shirt around Williamsburg/Humboldt Park/Echo Park/(insert your favorite "urban frontier" here).
It's an extension of their last two records for sure, and at times it sounds like straight-up crossover thrash. Also, even though Todd Kowalski joined the band more than ten years ago, this is only their third record since then, so his contributions to the band are still becoming clear. Not totally sure, but I think his songs are the compassionate ones about refugees and immigrants and junkies and middle-school outcasts, and you sort of get the sense that this band would have ended years ago without his enthusiasm.
Also, they've added a second guitar. Second guitar!!!
And finally, they're playing Pomona and Los Angeles in late-May. Who's coming with me? I've been wanting to see this band for literally 14 years, and I don't think they've come anywhere near me, geographically, during that time.
The last thing I will say to this album's credit: my cats spend a lot of time with loud music of different types, and nothing really phases them at all. But when the big huge riffs come in on this record, it totally startles Rakim, who is sitting in the window next to me right now.
So originally I was really excited when not one but two people told me that Rod Blago is going to have his own reality TV show. Then I found out that he's just playing some bit part in a bootleg Survivor ripoff called, "I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here." The court has to give him permission to go to Costa Rica for filming. Failing some sort of confrontation with Flavor Flav, I don't see how this could be remotely compelling television, but either way Blago isn't going anywhere soon. If MC Serch shows up, I'm plugging in the HDTV conversion adapter box thingy.
Does anyone else find the "let's come up with a plan to battle the pirates" thing really lame? It just seems sort of like we got caught unawares and are pretending to be on the ball now. Hillary has a "four-point plan" three days after the attack is over? That seems a bit rushed, no? I mean, they've been slapping new names on the Bush/Paulsen bank bailout for three months now - we might as well just be going into the Treasury and setting new bills on fire at this point. But less than a week after some broke down Somali pirates take over an oceanliner, we have a comprehensive plan? Not a good look.
Seems like the original plan was pretty effective: wait until some pirates take a vessel, then kill them all and have warm and fuzzy press events since no Americans died. Doesn't make me very comfortable ethically but I have a sinking suspicion that this could be the end result of Hillary's plan too. Or am I totally off on this one?
Woke up today to this frightening news: Over a dozen dead in a hostage situation at an immigrant services center in NY state. They don't seem to know anything yet on the news, motive included, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is proof that TheAssHoles are dangerous.
In sunnier news: while we Californians will forever be shamed by our anti-gay marriage amendment and the state Supreme Court that looks set to uphold it, Iowa's Supreme Court today legalized gay marriage. They cited, you know, basic human rights: "The supreme court justices drew explicit parallels to civil rights struggles by blacks and women, holding that the state's ban on same-sex marriage was a violation of the equality promised in the Iowa constitution."
I assume this is the sort of thing a journalist would ask the President about at a press conference, no? Would love to hear him try again to recapitulate his totally incoherent stance on gay marriage.
Still, it calls into question California's inane system of amendment passing: whip everyone up into a frenzy of lies and confusion, then get us to pass something we probably don't even really agree with. The old-fashioned branches of representative government seem to have won out this week in VT and IA, Californian "direct democracy" just sort of an embarrassment again.
I would like to officially apologize to Lauren Ahkiam for insulting her favorite Joni Mitchell songs. If it makes you feel any better, me and Eric listened to "A Case of You" yesterday afternoon and I like that song.
Apparently Miss Universe toured Guantanamo Bay last week and just did not have enough good things to say about the place. Creepiest quote: "We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills." Geez. Someone please kill us all.
Related: it has come to my attention recently that many people have not seen Miss Teen USA 2007's rambling discussion of why we Americans don't technically know anything about where anything is in the whole entire world. Please watch this. Special guest appearance by AC Slater.
Well, apparently this photo is circa 1990, because today he looks like he has been partially reconstructed from pieces of an old baseball mitt.
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