THEM:
VULTURE: Watch Stanley From The Office’s ... Music Video?
HE:
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
"KING OF THE ROAD!"
Words.
"In many ways, Newt is the perfect man.
...What does it say about the cuckoo G.O.P. primary that Gingrich is the hot new thing? Still, his moment is now. And therein lies the rub.
As one commentator astutely noted, Gingrich is a historian and a futurist who can’t seem to handle the present. He has more exploding cigars in his pocket than the president with whom he had the volatile bromance: Bill Clinton.
But next to Romney, Gingrich seems authentic. Next to Herman Cain, Gingrich seems faithful. Next to Jon Huntsman, Gingrich seems conservative. Next to Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, Gingrich actually does look like an intellectual. Unlike the governor of Texas, he surely knows the voting age. To paraphrase Raymond Chandler, if brains were elastic, Perry wouldn’t have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet.
In presidential campaigns, it’s all relative.
...Maybe the ideal man to fix Washington’s dysfunction is the one who made it dysfunctional. He broke it so he should own it. And Newt has the best reason to long for the presidency: He’d never be banished to the back of Air Force One again"
THE NEW YORK TIMES: My Man Newt
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
And now, a Liberty Walk.
Courtesy of Miley Cyrus.
For AMERICA! *fist pump*
ROLLING STONE: Miley Cyrus Supports Occupy Wall Street
For AMERICA! *fist pump*
ROLLING STONE: Miley Cyrus Supports Occupy Wall Street
Kick the Can.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"The deficit that should most worry us is a deficit of reasonableness. The problems the United States confronts are large but not insoluble. Yet sensible solutions that are broadly popular can’t be enacted.
Why? Because an ideological bloc that sees every crisis as an opportunity to reduce the size of government holds enough power in Congress to stop us from doing what needs to be done.
...the problem we face isn’t about structures or the party system. It’s about ideology — specifically a right-wing ideology that has temporarily taken over the Republican Party and needs to be defeated before we can have a reasonable debate between moderate conservatives and moderate progressives about our country’s future.
...We need moderation all right, but a moderate third party is the one way to guarantee we won’t get it. If moderates really want to move the conversation to the center, they should devote their energies to confronting those who are blocking the way. And at this moment, the obstruction is coming from a radicalized right."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Divided moderates will be conquered
Words.
"The deficit that should most worry us is a deficit of reasonableness. The problems the United States confronts are large but not insoluble. Yet sensible solutions that are broadly popular can’t be enacted.
Why? Because an ideological bloc that sees every crisis as an opportunity to reduce the size of government holds enough power in Congress to stop us from doing what needs to be done.
...the problem we face isn’t about structures or the party system. It’s about ideology — specifically a right-wing ideology that has temporarily taken over the Republican Party and needs to be defeated before we can have a reasonable debate between moderate conservatives and moderate progressives about our country’s future.
...We need moderation all right, but a moderate third party is the one way to guarantee we won’t get it. If moderates really want to move the conversation to the center, they should devote their energies to confronting those who are blocking the way. And at this moment, the obstruction is coming from a radicalized right."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Divided moderates will be conquered
Friday, November 25, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Talk that Talk.
Words.
"...these are chatty times, and in 2011, the pop landscape's fittingly caught between two maximalist extremes: the winking theatricality of Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry, and the dribbling confessional-pop of Drake, Kanye West, and (yes, they're more alike than they'd like to believe) Taylor Swift. Barbados-born, millions-selling, armfuls-of-awards-winning Rihanna has found staggering success (23 years old; eleven #1 singles and rising) borrowing a little bit from each of these tendencies. Her recent music videos have dabbled in trendy pop artifice (check out her neon-hued, irresistibly smiley turn in Guetta’s "Who’s That Chick?" or the David LaChapelle-aping-- literally-- "S&M"), while her brooding and personal 2009 album Rated R commented-- however obliquely-- on her public struggles. Rihanna seems more comfortable flitting between these two extremes than settling on either, but her past two albums have at least had some thematic cohesion. The same can't be said of Talk That Talk: Heavy on filler though it's only 11 tracks long, it feels not only slight but muddled, an assortment of half-baked ideas that never bloom. A stitched-together collection of club bangers, sleaze-pop missteps, and mid-tempo inspirational ballads, Talk That Talk feels at times like three different records, only one of which might have been any good.
... Talk That Talk tries too hard to send a more one-dimensional message and ends up falling flat: Rihanna's obviously going for sexy here, but her music's at its most alluring when she's blissed out in her own reverie, not taking the time to spell it all out for us."
PITCHFORK: Rihanna: Talk that Talk
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Whip Appeal?
For Your Consideration...
PITCHFORK: Gucci Mane and Kreayshawn Sidekick V-Nasty Announce Joint Album
PITCHFORK: Gucci Mane and Kreayshawn Sidekick V-Nasty Announce Joint Album
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Old School Funk for the True Funk Soldiers.
*closes eyes* "DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE SAY! THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT, BOUT YOU AND ME! PUT IT OUT YOUR MIND, CAUSE IT'S JEALOUSY! THEY. DON'T. KNOW. ABOUT THIS HERE!"
Jon B.
They Don't Know...
Jon B.
They Don't Know...
Friday, November 18, 2011
Out of the Races & Onto the Tracks!
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"Occupy Wall Street may not occupy Zuccotti Park anymore, but it refuses to surrender its place in the national discourse. Up close, you get the sense that the movement may have only just begun.
Demonstrators staged a “day of action” Thursday, following the eviction of their two-month-old encampment this week. The idea was, well, to occupy Wall Street in a literal sense — to shut down the financial district, at least during the morning rush hour.
...For the most part, it didn’t work.
...A big failure? No, quite the opposite.
Lower Manhattan was swarming not just with demonstrators and police but with journalists from around the world — and with tourists who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. A small, nonviolent protest had been amplified into something much bigger and more compelling, not by the strength of its numbers but by the power of its central idea.
There is a central idea, by the way: Our financial system has been warped to serve the interests of a privileged few at the expense of everyone else.
Is this true? I believe the evidence suggests that it is. Others might disagree. The important thing is that because of the activism of the Occupy Wall Street protests — however naive, however all-over-the-map — issues of unfairness and inequality are being discussed.
...The erstwhile occupiers of Zuccotti Park swear that they aren’t going anywhere — that they’ll get back into the park one way or another. But they’ve done something more important: They’ve gotten into people’s heads."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Occupy: Out of Zuccotti Park and into the streets
Words.
"Occupy Wall Street may not occupy Zuccotti Park anymore, but it refuses to surrender its place in the national discourse. Up close, you get the sense that the movement may have only just begun.
Demonstrators staged a “day of action” Thursday, following the eviction of their two-month-old encampment this week. The idea was, well, to occupy Wall Street in a literal sense — to shut down the financial district, at least during the morning rush hour.
...For the most part, it didn’t work.
...A big failure? No, quite the opposite.
Lower Manhattan was swarming not just with demonstrators and police but with journalists from around the world — and with tourists who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. A small, nonviolent protest had been amplified into something much bigger and more compelling, not by the strength of its numbers but by the power of its central idea.
There is a central idea, by the way: Our financial system has been warped to serve the interests of a privileged few at the expense of everyone else.
Is this true? I believe the evidence suggests that it is. Others might disagree. The important thing is that because of the activism of the Occupy Wall Street protests — however naive, however all-over-the-map — issues of unfairness and inequality are being discussed.
...The erstwhile occupiers of Zuccotti Park swear that they aren’t going anywhere — that they’ll get back into the park one way or another. But they’ve done something more important: They’ve gotten into people’s heads."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Occupy: Out of Zuccotti Park and into the streets
(Drake Vocal)...
"I'M SO, I'M SO, I'M SO, I'M SO, I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!"
Justin Bieber.
DWYCK Freestyle on Hot 97 in the morning.
Justin Bieber.
DWYCK Freestyle on Hot 97 in the morning.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Deep Cover.
Words.
"...Thank Me Later (2010) was a record that slowly burned its way into my heart despite my not really liking Drake all that much. This is largely because Drake is (was?) a brilliant executive producer. The pacing, guest appearances, and production on Thank Me Later are objectively staggering, and if you don’t think “Fancy” is one of the most fun rap singles of the last half-decade, we probably can’t get drunk together. Take Care, by comparison, is a distillation and expansion of the Drake-ness that was employed with restraint on Thank Me Later. Many of the tracks here sound like less poignant approximations of the muted languor of “The Resistance,” which is one of my very favorite tracks on Later. But that concept blown panoramic? One can only produce so many variations on a theme before they cease to be variations. I like opening tracks like “Over My Dead Body” and “Take Care” a lot, but some six or seven songs in, when Take Care starts to sound like a dismal echo of the preceding thirty minutes, my interest wanes.
The only decidedly un-Drake aspect of Take Care is the curious inclusion of “Practice”—a sorta-reintepretation of “Back That Azz Up” on which Drake sounds like Will Ferrell doing Robert Goulet doing Juvenile—as a closer. The sequencing on Drake’s projects is usually impeccable. Here, he seems to provide us with an ideal closing number in “Look What You’ve Done” before tacking on a pretty good Weezy collab on “HYFR (Hell Yeah Fuckin’ Right)” and a peculiar old-school Cash Money ode.
But I return to the thesis: this is the Drakest record in existence..."
COKEMACHINEGLOW: Drake - Take Care. A Review.
Round & Round.
[Healthcare.]
Words.
"If former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and President Obama face off in the 2012 presidential campaign, America will witness the singular spectacle of two candidates getting very little love — and plenty of hate — for the same signature achievement: reforming health care.
Why didn’t health-care reform pay off politically? In another era, we might be celebrating the remarkable fact that both a Democratic president and a leading Republican challenger arrived at fundamentally the same approach to fixing our health-care system. But that is not the America we live in now. Instead of rejoicing at how we’ve finally solved a national problem with a long and acrimonious history, we’re about to plunge into a new phase of that battle, with the Supreme Court agreeing to rule on the health law’s constitutionality in its new term — possibly at the height of a presidential campaign that could come down to the two men most tied to the issue.
...The resistance to reform doesn’t arise because Americans are such determined individualists that they reject all government help. In fact, much of the opposition has come from an entitled majority: seniors on Medicare, veterans and employees with good health benefits, who receive a substantial tax subsidy. The potency of these entitlements lies in the psychology they instill; the beneficiaries do not see themselves as receiving government assistance. They believe that they have earned their coverage, whereas others have not, and they can be indignant that other people expect the government to help them.
...When Congress passed the Medicare prescription-drug benefit in 2003, surveys indicated that senior citizens opposed the law; they viewed it more favorably only after it went into effect in 2006. Supporters of national health-care reform are hoping for just that kind of swing. Much as Romney’s program gained support in Massachusetts after being carried out, so the national law may win approval in 2014 if people can see how it works in practice.
But even if the Supreme Court upholds the individual mandate, the law may never reach that point if Obama fails to earn any credit for it and loses the election, only to see a Republican successor — perhaps, in a final irony, Romney — sign a repeal and complete a cycle of national frustration."
THE WASHINGTON POST: In 2012, both Obama and Romney would bear the burdens of health-care reform
"Easy like Sunday Morning."
Words. For Your Consideration...
"Here is a surefire way to cut $7.1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. Do nothing.
Knowing this, are you still sure that a “failure” by the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal would be such a disaster?
...Doing nothing is not an option when it comes to job creation. Congress still needs to act. But on the deficit, inaction now could lead to wiser action later.
...A balanced deal would be nice but it’s now impossible — and not because of some vague congressional “dysfunction” the media like to talk about. Sane fiscal policies are blocked because one party refuses to accept the need to roll back the excesses of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. If Congress does nothing, those tax cuts go away. That’s why a “failure” by the supercommittee to endorse a deeply flawed deal is actually a victory for sensible deficit reduction."
THE WASHINGTON POST: How we can succeed through supercommittee’s ‘failure’
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
"Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada!"
Meanwhile with the GOP...
Words.
"As the GOP candidates have been thrashing it out in debates that seem to occur every couple of hours or so, one almost misses the iconic wink that enraged or beguiled the nation a political season ago.
Admit it. You miss Sarah Palin just a little: The wink, the red shoes, the pointing finger, the heck-with-ya attitude and, given the performance of some of her Republican colleagues, her Taser-like intelligence.
Yes, it has come to this.
...It is one thing to be self-effacing and to have a sense of humor about one’s self. We love that. It is another to be a clown.
...Perry and Cain are both talented men who deserve more than our contempt. Nevertheless, it has become clear that they are not now presidential material. We may indeed overlook their faults, but we needn’t excuse what are more than mere lapses. Their lack of knowledge or recall suggests a lack of depth and an absence of seriousness. We expect more from those who pretend to the throne.
And though Americans admire the self-made who have experienced ordinary life, most don’t want an ordinary person to lead the country.
A funny line is worth a laugh, a song may buy you lunch, but in the end, there’s no winking one’s way to the White House."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Perry, Cain and a parade of painful moments
Words.
"As the GOP candidates have been thrashing it out in debates that seem to occur every couple of hours or so, one almost misses the iconic wink that enraged or beguiled the nation a political season ago.
Admit it. You miss Sarah Palin just a little: The wink, the red shoes, the pointing finger, the heck-with-ya attitude and, given the performance of some of her Republican colleagues, her Taser-like intelligence.
Yes, it has come to this.
...It is one thing to be self-effacing and to have a sense of humor about one’s self. We love that. It is another to be a clown.
...Perry and Cain are both talented men who deserve more than our contempt. Nevertheless, it has become clear that they are not now presidential material. We may indeed overlook their faults, but we needn’t excuse what are more than mere lapses. Their lack of knowledge or recall suggests a lack of depth and an absence of seriousness. We expect more from those who pretend to the throne.
And though Americans admire the self-made who have experienced ordinary life, most don’t want an ordinary person to lead the country.
A funny line is worth a laugh, a song may buy you lunch, but in the end, there’s no winking one’s way to the White House."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Perry, Cain and a parade of painful moments
Heartbeat.
Starring Childish Gambino.
LIVE! on Conan.
ALSO:
PASSION OF THE WEISS: An Open Letter To America Regarding Donald Glover’s Career
LIVE! on Conan.
ALSO:
PASSION OF THE WEISS: An Open Letter To America Regarding Donald Glover’s Career
"WHAT'S A GOON TO A GOBLIN?!"
Words.
"I mean, I guess my dark side comes out in my music, but it's just weird that so many people think I'm such a fucking evil person. I don't fucking hate gay people. I'm probably one of the least homophobic rappers in the world. I don't discriminate, because that's what the fucking whites did to the blacks back then, and that's what kids did to me at school, because I listened to different music and shit. So I don't fucking discriminate."-Tyler the Creator, OFWGKTA.
SPIN: Odd Future: The New Underground's Loud Family Goes on the Road
"Jigga what? Jigga WHO?"
We Out Ch'here.
A video.
Starring Master P, Bengie B, T.E.C., Gangsta Gee & Miss Chee.
A video.
Starring Master P, Bengie B, T.E.C., Gangsta Gee & Miss Chee.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Shake.
A "New flava in ya ear!" production starring Little Boots.
POP DUST: The Singles Bar: Little Boots, "Shake"
POP DUST: The Singles Bar: Little Boots, "Shake"
Monday, November 14, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Grapes on a Vine.
A "New flava in ya ear!" Prodcution starring Betty Wright, The Roots, & Lil Wayne.
Hip-Hop Quotables.
"Niggas is gay. There's millions of gay people in the world. Girls too... I'm a fan of 'Yo, I'm gay. The fuck.' Like, 2011 you gotta hide that you're gay? Like, you know what I'm saying, like, be real, like 'Yo I'm gay, what the fuck.' If you gay you gay. Like that's your preference, you know? Fuck it if the people don't like it."-Fat Joe
GAWKER: With One Interview, Fat Joe Makes Hip Hop Safe for Gays
This American Life.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"I have a confession to make. At first, I misunderstood Occupy Wall Street.
...But I'm beginning to see another angle. Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.
...We were all playing the Rorschach-test game with OWS, trying to squint at it and see what we wanted to see in the movement. Viewed through the prism of our desire to make near-term, within-the-system changes, it was hard to see how skirmishing with cops in New York would help foreclosed-upon middle-class families in Jacksonville and San Diego.What both sides missed is that OWS is tired of all of this. They don't care what we think they're about, or should be about. They just want something different.
...That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.
...People want out of this fiendish system, rigged to inexorably circumvent every hope we have for a more balanced world. They want major changes. I think I understand now that this is what the Occupy movement is all about. It's about dropping out, if only for a moment, and trying something new, the same way that the civil rights movement of the 1960s strived to create a "beloved community" free of racial segregation.
...It is succeeding, for now, just by being something different."
ROLLING STONE: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests
Words.
"I have a confession to make. At first, I misunderstood Occupy Wall Street.
...But I'm beginning to see another angle. Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it. And by being so broad in scope and so elemental in its motivation, it's flown over the heads of many on both the right and the left.
...We were all playing the Rorschach-test game with OWS, trying to squint at it and see what we wanted to see in the movement. Viewed through the prism of our desire to make near-term, within-the-system changes, it was hard to see how skirmishing with cops in New York would help foreclosed-upon middle-class families in Jacksonville and San Diego.What both sides missed is that OWS is tired of all of this. They don't care what we think they're about, or should be about. They just want something different.
...That, to me, is what Occupy Wall Street is addressing. People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.
...People want out of this fiendish system, rigged to inexorably circumvent every hope we have for a more balanced world. They want major changes. I think I understand now that this is what the Occupy movement is all about. It's about dropping out, if only for a moment, and trying something new, the same way that the civil rights movement of the 1960s strived to create a "beloved community" free of racial segregation.
...It is succeeding, for now, just by being something different."
ROLLING STONE: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests
"Up, Up, and AWAY!"
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"This week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll reveals what we have all sensed, that most Americans are increasingly concerned about the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. The issue quickly divides along partisan lines, as do so many, with liberals urging government to do more to reduce this gap and conservatives opposing such measures. (Overall, a significant majority does favor government action.)
But on an issue even more significant than income inequality,
there does appear to be bipartisan agreement: the importance of social
mobility. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) accurately noted that “upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise.”
...over the past decade, growing evidence shows pretty conclusively that social mobility has stalled in this country. Last week, Time magazine’s cover asked, “Can You Still Move Up in America?” The answer, citing a series of academic studies was, no; not as much as you could in the past...
...we do know how to create social mobility — because we used to do it. In addition, we can learn from those countries that do it so well, particularly in Northern Europe and Canada. The ingredients are obvious: decent health care and nutrition for children, good public education, high-quality infrastructure — including broadband Internet — to connect all regions and all people to market opportunities, and a flexible and competitive free economy. That will get America moving again — and all Americans moving again."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The downward path of upward mobility
Words.
"This week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll reveals what we have all sensed, that most Americans are increasingly concerned about the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. The issue quickly divides along partisan lines, as do so many, with liberals urging government to do more to reduce this gap and conservatives opposing such measures. (Overall, a significant majority does favor government action.)
...over the past decade, growing evidence shows pretty conclusively that social mobility has stalled in this country. Last week, Time magazine’s cover asked, “Can You Still Move Up in America?” The answer, citing a series of academic studies was, no; not as much as you could in the past...
...we do know how to create social mobility — because we used to do it. In addition, we can learn from those countries that do it so well, particularly in Northern Europe and Canada. The ingredients are obvious: decent health care and nutrition for children, good public education, high-quality infrastructure — including broadband Internet — to connect all regions and all people to market opportunities, and a flexible and competitive free economy. That will get America moving again — and all Americans moving again."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The downward path of upward mobility
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