A video.
Starring Die Antwoord.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Grand Old Party.
Words.
"...This has been an exceedingly silly political season.
But it has also been a sad one. The Republican establishment acts as if this season’s goon squad of presidential candidates has come out of nowhere, an act of God — a tsunami that hit the party and receded, leaving nothing but nitwits standing. In column after column, conservative commentators lament the present condition, but not their past acquiescence as their party turned hostile to thought, reason and the two most important words in the English language: It depends.
...It is entirely appropriate that last week’s GOP debates fell between “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers” in the 10 most-watched cable television shows. They are sheer entertainment having little to do with us and our problems. The Republican Party has veered so far from reality that Gingrich is lambasting Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate” — moderation being, as it was with the clueless Barry Goldwater, an epithet. Romney, who has all but collapsed his rib cage to conform to conservative dogma, must be perplexed. Others have prudently stayed out of the race.
The Republican establishment that has now risen up to smite the bratty Gingrich has only itself to blame. For too long it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city. The endorsement of Gingrich by Cain was not a bulletin. It was a feeble blip on a scope. The GOP is brain-dead."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Republicans have only themselves to blame
Happy in Bits.
A "New flava in ya ear!" production starring Prinzhorn Dance School.
Stream here.
EARLIER:
One-A-Day! Tauwan's Top 25 Albums of 2007! : EIGHTEEN/PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL/PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL
Stream here.
EARLIER:
One-A-Day! Tauwan's Top 25 Albums of 2007! : EIGHTEEN/PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL/PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL
Monday, January 30, 2012
Now I Understand.
A "New flava in ya ear!" production starring The Flaming Lips & Erykah Badu.
PITCHFORK: Listen: Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu: "Now I Understand"
PITCHFORK: Listen: Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu: "Now I Understand"
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
MIXTAPE FRIDAYS!!!
PARKS & RECREATION
A playlist.
1/David Bowie/Life on Mars
2/A$AP Rocky, Chace Infinite, & Spaceghost Purrp/Keep it G
3/Schoolboy Q, Dom Kennedy, & Curren$y/Grooveline Pt. 1
4/J. Cole & Trey Songz/Can't Get Enough
5/French Montana & Charlie Rock/Shot Caller
6/A$AP Rocky/Peso
7/Childish Gambino/You See Me
8/Curren$y & Stalley/Address
9/Rick Ross, Stalley, & 2Chainz/Party Heart
10/A$AP Rocky/Wassup
11/Rick Ross, Drake, & French Montana/Stay Schemin'
12/T.I./Stuntin' Like A Fool
13/Schoolboy Q & A$AP Rocky/Hands on the Wheel
14/T.I. & Dr. Dre/Popped Off
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Open Arms.
Warmth.
Words.
"...The Internet, nowadays, is overwhelmingly dominated by fora in which you hang out as your actual self. Facebook. Twitter. And now, Google.
But not to get all Proustian on everyone, we are all composed of many selves. And nowhere is that more true than in the things we do online. Perfectly good, upstanding citizens will watch outre trailer and laugh at videos of cats running into walls. There are videos of housecats speaking in tongues that I have watched hundreds of times. And don’t get me started on the music videos. On the Internet, things that we’d turn our noses up at in person go viral because people have a freedom online to be curious without consequence.
Show me someone who stands behind his entire browser history, and I will show you a confident liar..."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Don't Be Creepy, Google
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
CANARY IN A COALMINE.
An Ongoing Discussion.
Words.
"One week ago, Newt Gingrich was on the ropes in South Carolina, under near-universal assault on the right from his attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to the Club for Growth and the Wall Street Journal had all declared their disgust. The conservative backlash had given Romney a double-digit lead in the polls. At a candidate forum hosted by Mike Huckabee, Gingrich was booed by the crowd when he tried to defend his Bain attacks.
Fast forward one week, and Gingrich is the winner of the South Carolina primary.
Not only did Gingrich win, he crushed Romney 40.4 percent to 27.9
percent — a swing of more than 20 points in just a week. And a new poll
shows that, after trailing Romney by more than 20 points in Florida last
week, Gingrich has now opened an eight-point lead in the Sunshine State.
What happened? Simply put, Romney let Gingrich up off the mat.
...Gingrich was nimble and flexible in the face of adversity. Romney was stiff and flatfooted — and he lost the South Carolina primary as a result.
The damage to Romney’s campaign could extend beyond South Carolina for this reason: The central premise of Romney’s candidacy is that he is the best man to beat Obama. But in South Carolina, Gingrich borrowed directly from Obama’s playbook, launching the exact same attack Obama will use against Romney this fall if he is the nominee. Romney responded with all the agility of a deer caught in headlights. He had a chance to show just how he would take the fight to Obama in November — and he failed miserably.
This should raise a question in the minds of GOP voters: If Romney can’t defend free-market capitalism against Gingrich, how will he be able to defend it in the fall against Obama?..."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Romney'S Pawlenty Moment
SEE ALSO: THE WASHINGTON POST: Newt Gingrich exploits politics of class and culture
Words.
"One week ago, Newt Gingrich was on the ropes in South Carolina, under near-universal assault on the right from his attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Everyone from Rush Limbaugh to the Club for Growth and the Wall Street Journal had all declared their disgust. The conservative backlash had given Romney a double-digit lead in the polls. At a candidate forum hosted by Mike Huckabee, Gingrich was booed by the crowd when he tried to defend his Bain attacks.
What happened? Simply put, Romney let Gingrich up off the mat.
...Gingrich was nimble and flexible in the face of adversity. Romney was stiff and flatfooted — and he lost the South Carolina primary as a result.
The damage to Romney’s campaign could extend beyond South Carolina for this reason: The central premise of Romney’s candidacy is that he is the best man to beat Obama. But in South Carolina, Gingrich borrowed directly from Obama’s playbook, launching the exact same attack Obama will use against Romney this fall if he is the nominee. Romney responded with all the agility of a deer caught in headlights. He had a chance to show just how he would take the fight to Obama in November — and he failed miserably.
This should raise a question in the minds of GOP voters: If Romney can’t defend free-market capitalism against Gingrich, how will he be able to defend it in the fall against Obama?..."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Romney'S Pawlenty Moment
Friday, January 20, 2012
Afterthoughts.
A Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"...The political debates on free markets or the privileges of the 1 percent seldom touch on the actual struggles of citizens — say, living in the shadow of foreclosure, or attending a failing school, or surviving in a gang-occupied neighborhood. Ideology is abstract. Hardship is lived concretely.
...But many Americans are being overlooked in this bipartisan conspiracy of economic abstraction. A significant and growing portion of the population lives in poverty. In 2007, the rate was 12.5 percent. By 2010, it was 15.1 percent. The share of Americans in extreme poverty — with an income less than half the poverty line — is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has kept such records.
...a debate on poverty is needed..."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The Americans no one wants to talk about
"...The political debates on free markets or the privileges of the 1 percent seldom touch on the actual struggles of citizens — say, living in the shadow of foreclosure, or attending a failing school, or surviving in a gang-occupied neighborhood. Ideology is abstract. Hardship is lived concretely.
...But many Americans are being overlooked in this bipartisan conspiracy of economic abstraction. A significant and growing portion of the population lives in poverty. In 2007, the rate was 12.5 percent. By 2010, it was 15.1 percent. The share of Americans in extreme poverty — with an income less than half the poverty line — is the highest in the 35 years that the Census Bureau has kept such records.
...a debate on poverty is needed..."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The Americans no one wants to talk about
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Blue.
Words.
"...Until the day she releases a solid record, or at least more material than there is analysis of her existing three songs, I’m mostly disinterested. But it’s only fair that if I hate the hype when things are going Del Rey’s way, I should hate it just as much when somewhere she’s probably got her head buried under a pillow, wondering, miserably, if her career is over before it began.
It’s the breathless, and less-than-substantial, analysis of what makes her music great that alienates me. The equally breathless but also pitiless criticism now being heaped on her comes from the same place, and should be equally alienating. Hype is the megaphone for our basest tendencies. We can’t just “like” something. It needs to be the most meaningful experience ever. Likewise, we can’t dislike something. It must be destroyed.
...With social media, the reaction to Del Rey’s performance has grown from curiosity to schadenfreude. I don’t like Lana Del Rey’s music very much. But today, for Lana Del Rey the person rather than Lana Del Rey the product, I feel pretty bad."
COKEMACHINEGLOW: An Attempt at Real Empathy: Lana Del Rey on SNL
EARLIER:
QUESTION!: SALON: Was Lana Del Ray really that bad?
WHERE HAVE ALL THE COWBOYS GONE?
An Ongoing Discussion/Moment of Clarity.
Words.
"Members of the Tea Party insisted they were turning the GOP into a populist, anti-establishment bastion. Social conservatives have long argued that values and morals matter more than money. Yet in the end, the corporate and economically conservative wing of the Republican Party always seems to win.
...What’s remarkable is that Romney seems to be closing in on a victory at the very moment when he is painting himself as the anti-populist and a tone-deaf economic elitist. Not only did he suggest Tuesday that he pays a low 15 percent tax rate (because most of his income derives from investments); he also dismissed the money he made from speaking fees as “not very much.”
...Think about Romney’s rise in light of the overheated political analysis of 2010 that saw a Republican Party as being transformed by the Tea Party legions who, in alliance with an overlapping group of social and religious conservatives, would take the party away from the establishmentarians. If I had a dollar for every time the new GOP was described in those days as “populist,” I suspect I’d have more than Romney made from his lectures.
...“Romney is as establishment as they come,” said McAlister. For many conservatives, he added, a fall campaign between Romney and President Obama could thus be a choice between “which of the two establishments do you hate most.”
That’s not where the Tea Party’s promoters said we were headed."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Where are the Republican populists?
Words.
"Members of the Tea Party insisted they were turning the GOP into a populist, anti-establishment bastion. Social conservatives have long argued that values and morals matter more than money. Yet in the end, the corporate and economically conservative wing of the Republican Party always seems to win.
...What’s remarkable is that Romney seems to be closing in on a victory at the very moment when he is painting himself as the anti-populist and a tone-deaf economic elitist. Not only did he suggest Tuesday that he pays a low 15 percent tax rate (because most of his income derives from investments); he also dismissed the money he made from speaking fees as “not very much.”
...Think about Romney’s rise in light of the overheated political analysis of 2010 that saw a Republican Party as being transformed by the Tea Party legions who, in alliance with an overlapping group of social and religious conservatives, would take the party away from the establishmentarians. If I had a dollar for every time the new GOP was described in those days as “populist,” I suspect I’d have more than Romney made from his lectures.
...“Romney is as establishment as they come,” said McAlister. For many conservatives, he added, a fall campaign between Romney and President Obama could thus be a choice between “which of the two establishments do you hate most.”
That’s not where the Tea Party’s promoters said we were headed."
THE WASHINGTON POST: Where are the Republican populists?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
"Where have all the Cowboys gone?"
An Ongoing Discussion/Moment of Clarity.
THE WASHINGTON POST: Where are the serious Republican candidates?
THE WASHINGTON POST: Where are the serious Republican candidates?
Monday, January 16, 2012
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