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February 28, 2008
Flying rats!
Some crafty Swedes have made a lovely slo-mo movie of bats in flight, and the story about it at Nature News includes the term "controlled flappers." It's Christmas in February!
February 27, 2008
Muhammad was apparently not The Prophet of Good Television.
I really feel sorry for the children of Hamas, and not just because of the poverty, squalor, military harassment, simpleminded religious indoctrination, and all-pervading sense of victimhood they're exposed to every day. Possibly even worse is having to watch shitty TV shows like Tomorrow's Pioneers.
And I thought New Zoo Revue was boring.
Here's the best part of the Wikipedia entry about the show:
Saraa currently co-hosts with her third animal friend, the rabbit Assoud; the first two were killed, according to storyline by "the Jews." The average life-span of Saraa's co-hosts has been five episodes. Assoud is on his third episode.
Keep an eye out for drones over the bunny hutch, Assoud.
Via Slog.
It's Take-A-Bigot-To-School Day!
In the wake of radio host/douchebag Bill Cunningham's repetition of Barack Obama's middle name (yes, it's Hussein) during a campaign rally for John McCain yesterday, Juan Cole has this excellent essay about the Semitic origins of many an "American" name, like Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln.
While the moronic fear-mongering over Obama's name (along with the parallel lie about him being a Muslim, as though that's any worse than being a Christian) shows how rhetorically bankrupt the conservatives are in this election, it's also a reminder that the best way to fight the fear of the unfamiliar is to demystify it through repetition. Vancouver Grizzlies fans certainly stopped thinking that "Shareef Abdur-Rahim" sounded strange once he was averaging 20 points a game.
So our next president's middle derives from a Semitic word meaning "handsome"? I know plenty of ladies who don't disagree. Sure beats one whose last name is a synonym for "pubic thatch".
February 25, 2008
The wool sack with Bear Head Power™.
Psychic bear pod is controlling your appliances and haunting your mind.
Psychic bear pod will confound your scale.
Submit to psychic bear pod.
Via CO.
February 24, 2008
Ralph Nader, our guilty conscience.
So Nader's in the race again this year, causing bug-eyed terror among my fellow Democrats whose memories of the 2000 election can still elicit a trembling rage. I understand this; if Ralph had thrown his support to Al Gore even two weeks before that election, we'd be living in a very different (and far better) world today. But as the man points out at every opportunity (and he's right), Al Gore didn't run a competent enough campaign to win even his home state of Tennessee that year, and that's all it would have taken.
Heaps o' blame all around. Let's move on.
I agree that Ralph is, as Howard Dean once stated so well, a textbook example of making the perfect the enemy of the good. He is an egomaniac, like any dogged presidential contender must be. In Ralph's mind it's his way or no way, and he carries a bookish, self-assured arrogance about his convictions that makes many a pragmatist want to punch him in the face.
I get it.
But let's remember two things this time around:
1. Ralph is old, both literally and conversationally. With each cycle, fewer and fewer people are buying into his I-go-it-alone evangelism. In 2000, he got 2.8 million votes, or 2.9% of the total cast. In 2004, he got 465,000 votes, or .38% of the total. That's not a promising trend.
2. Ralph is worth having around just for his rhetoric. He's still the most emphatically well-spoken critic of our fucked-up system you're going to see on Meet The Press. Here he is from today (and I suggest you watch the video), harboring no illusions about his chances to disrupt the election this time around:
If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form. You think the American people are going to vote for a pro-war John McCain who almost gives an indication that he's the candidate of perpetual war, perpetual intervention overseas? You think they're going to vote for a Republican like McCain, who allies himself with the criminal, recidivistic regime of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the most multiply-impeachable presidency in American history? Many leading members of the bar, including the former head of the American Bar Association, Michael Greco, absolutely dismayed over the violations of the Constitution, our federal laws, the criminal, illegal war in Iraq and the occupation? There's no way. That's why we have to take this opportunity to have a much broader debate on the issues that relate to the American people, as, as, as a fellow in Long Island said recently, Mr. Sloane, he said, "These parties aren't speaking to me. They're not speaking to my problems, to my family's problems."
He's a scold. He's an endless irritant. He's probably no fun at parties. But don't forget that he brought consumer advocacy and environmental protection to the federal government, and some of his accomplishments have survived even the Bush/Cheney administration, much to its endless frustration. That's gotta earn him a little love.
So do your thing, Ralph, and enjoy your 71,000 or so votes. Keep reminding us of our ideals, you crotchety old fuck, and we'll try to remember them ourselves.
Flocke will fry your eye sockets.
Flocke is the baby polar bear who's growing up in the Nuremberg Zoo. She'll cause your brain to explode.
I challenge you to watch any of her videos (the image above is from #71) and not want to smash her with a hammer. She's just too god-damned cute to be allowed to live.
February 19, 2008
Let the percussion corrode your brain.
Ernie and Bert, remixed into Ministryesque mayhem:
Thanks to The American Caliban for that one.
It reminds me of this offering from Helios Design Labs, set to United Cutlery's "Pemmikan".
February 18, 2008
Another reason to stay in L.A.
We saw the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA last night. Great building.
Great collection of street lamps by Chris Burden out front.
Inside, I have to agree with the NY Times that it's a lot of the usual suspects. Still, they didn't need to be such snobbish, petulant dicks about it.
Never mind. Bookend a visit to BCAM with the Hollywood Farmer's Market and Pollo a la Brasa in Koreatown, and your faith in L.A. is fully refreshed.
February 14, 2008
Because there haven't been nearly enough Democratic debates.
As Hillary's superdelegates are beginning to desert her, she's shifted rhetorical gears (yet again) as she desperately tries to slow the Obamamentum (I promise I'll never use that word again):
Clinton advisers say that the stakes are so high — in Ohio and Texas in particular — that Mrs. Clinton cannot afford to let Mr. Obama gain momentum. In Wisconsin, for instance, Mrs. Clinton is hoping to stave off a blowout — and perhaps even pull off a surprise — by blasting Mr. Obama for refusing to debate her there.“The last time we debated was in California, and I convincingly won California, which may be why Senator Obama doesn’t want to have a debate in Wisconsin,” Mrs. Clinton said in a telephone conference call with reporters.
Mr. Carson, her spokesman, said she would keep the debate issue alive until Tuesday.
Lee Stranahan channels Hillary's argument. Nicely done.
When politics becomes (insert trend here).
Today's fad website:
Trendiness, and the inevitable knee-jerk backlash that follows it, is especially unfortunate in presidential politics. But I guess it's unavoidable in today's endlessly-meta, media-everywhere environment. Matt Bai has this blog entry today at the NY Times:
After Super Tuesday, I was surprised to find that a friend of mine, a lifelong Democrat who had been pledging his allegiance to Barack Obama all year, had stepped into the voting booth and suddenly changed his mind. He voted, instead, for Hillary Clinton, and here’s why: he’d watched that video online —you know, the one starring celebrities like will.i.am, Scarlett Johansson and Herbie Hancock—and he thought it made Obama look Hollywood smug, as if supporting him were this year’s version of wearing an AIDS ribbon on your lapel. My friend didn’t want anything to do with the latest chic cause, and he just couldn’t bring himself to pull the lever for the guy who now symbolized the things he liked least about Democratic politics, starting with all those stars who think they know more about America than the people who live in it.
The friend's choice is no more informed than that of the trend victims he holds in such contempt; both are based on superficial bullshit. But I suspect that this kind of decision-making is awfully common this election year.
Kerri told me of some rocker kid she spoke with who was all excited about caucasing for Obama, yet so politically clueless that when Kerri asked him who his second choice would be, the answer was along the lines of "McCain, because he seems like a badass."
Ah well, it's the sausage factory as usual. And if trendiness is what it takes to restore some fucking sanity to the executive branch, I say set out the Kool-Aid. Just try to encourage everyone to get a bit more informed as you hand them the pitcher.
This, of course, was inevitable:
February 12, 2008
Hillary really understands The Kids.
Is this the Clinton campaign's attempted answer to the "Yes We Can" music video? If so, ouchie.
And it really must hurt getting schooled on your attempt at coolness by a blog from Time Magazine:
I'm reminded of that Mr. Show sketch where the parents put on board shorts and Vans and toss around a beach ball impersonating teens in a show called something like, "Just Rappin!" They say things like, "I'm going to get my hair cut so that people can see my pretty face!" and, "I'm going to get a job because the gas tank doesn't fill itself!" I think today they'd add, "And I'm going to vote for Hillary because she'll keep college affordable!"
Also, this "band" looks like it was picked from the campaign's crop of earnest young staffers (who knew there were any?). Couldn't they have found someone more convincing as a musician, like, say, this guy?
February 10, 2008
The treasures of rural America.
At the outer limits (literally and figuratively) of Sebastopol, California:
Nearby, a llama spotting!
And in the town's weekend flea market, which instantly transports you to downtown Managua, this handsome footwear—
—apparently made from the skin of a Mugwump.
February 09, 2008
In Seattle today...
Via Slog.
February 08, 2008
In charisma's line of fire.
My friend Kerri had a front row spot at an impromptu Barack Obama speech today. He was on his way to address a beyond-capacity Key Arena in Seattle, and as a longtime Seattle Center denizen Kerri knew where the man might well turn up to address the throngs stuck outside, before he hit the main event.
Sure enough, he did:
Ka-boom, there the fuck he is. Barack Obama, my first choice for the Democratic Nomination and the man I firmly believe will be the next President of the United States of America. Stopping by to holler at some folks before heading in to the Key.People were losing their minds.
Someone had handed dude a megaphone so he could address the crowd. Obama gave a shortened version of his stump speech, filled with hope and promise and charisma and encouragement. He thanked the crowd for being there and apologized for the fact that so many got shut out.
In the middle of his short speech (5 minutes? 10 minutes?), he admonished a guy for climbing up on a pole for a better view.
“Get down from there, man,” he said. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” It got a good laugh from the crowd and brought the electricity up even further.
Read her blog entry here.
By the way, Senator, extra points for the old-school, megaphone-in-hand delivery. Evocative.
Going after McCain.
Politico has this piece today about all the rhetorical strategizing that Howard Dean & Co. are doing, now that McCain seems to have locked it up on the Republican side.
The putative POW-in-chief himself has already laid the groundwork:
As the economy was rising late last year as a major issue for voters, McCain in New Hampshire delivered this grenade, with its pin still in it: "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," he said. "I've got Greenspan's book."Those are not the only words that will come back to haunt him in November.
From the economy to Iraq to immigration to abortion, the Arizona senator's lengthy voting record and his primary season offerings to the Republican Party's conservative wing provide a deep vein for opposition researchers to mine for shifting positions and policy inconsistencies.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is already moving to redefine the presumed Republican nominee. In a fundraising appeal sent out Wednesday, Dean called McCain "a media darling" and warned that "from Iraq to health care, Social Security to special interest tax cuts to ethics, he's promising nothing more than a third Bush term."
Memo to Howard: one picture does all the heavy lifting for you.
Animals in translation.
February 05, 2008
Don't get too close to your meat.
The NY Times has this fascinating story about searching for the cause of a neurological illness that struck workers at an outfit called Quality Pork Processors. Guess what goes on in that place?
A great deal of pig disassembly, that's what.
And after a bit of detective work...
A survey of the workers confirmed what the plant’s nurses had suspected: those who got sick were employed at or near the “head table,” where workers cut the meat off severed hog heads.On Nov. 28...Dr. Ruth Lynfield, the state epidemiologist, toured the plant. She and the owner, Kelly Wadding, paid special attention to the head table. Dr. Lynfield became transfixed by one procedure in particular, called “blowing brains.”
As each head reached the end of the table, a worker would insert a metal hose into the foramen magnum, the opening that the spinal cord passes through. High-pressure blasts of compressed air then turned the brain into a slurry that squirted out through the same hole in the skull, often spraying brain tissue around and splattering the hose operator in the process.
The brains were pooled, poured into 10-pound containers and shipped to be sold as food — mostly in China and Korea, where cooks stir-fry them, but also in some parts of the American South, where people like them scrambled up with eggs.
The person blowing brains was separated from the other workers by a plexiglass shield that had enough space under it to allow the heads to ride through on a conveyor belt. There was also enough space for brain tissue to splatter nearby employees.
“You could see aerosolization of brain tissue,” Dr. Lynfield said.
The workers wore hard hats, gloves, lab coats and safety glasses, but many had bare arms, and none had masks or face shields to prevent swallowing or inhaling the mist of brain tissue.
Dr. Lynfield asked Mr. Wadding, “Kelly, what do you think is going on?”
Another money quote, this from a plant worker who became too sick to stand: “I always had brains on my arms,” she said.
February 02, 2008
Selling Obama for Super Tuesday.
At least he's using hope, rather than fear. Will it bring the kids out to vote?
Speaking of which, we had my friends John January and Tug McTighe on the radio show yesterday to talk about the current crop of presidential campaign commercials, and how they square with advertising theory in general.
Tug and John work at two different ad agencies in Kansas City (Tug's is in Lawrence, actually), but they collaborate on the podcast American Copywriter, a smart, funny, and all too infrequent look at the world of Selling Stuff. Tug and John are a couple of exceptionally good eggs.
You can catch their KPCC appearance here (scroll down to February 1st, and look for the segment title "Will You Buy This Candidate?"). And here they are as actors, in one of many spots we made for the Sci-Fi Channel:
