Watching the Singoff.
Good news, btw, as we have a volunteer to make the BJ Calendar for 2012.
by John Cole| 59 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Watching the Singoff.
Good news, btw, as we have a volunteer to make the BJ Calendar for 2012.
by DougJ| 53 Comments
This post is in: Bleg, Readership Capture
I’m not watching the Cain “Imagine” video, I have strong memories of that song. I remember, right after 9/11, Neil Young did a version of it and it was getting played everywhere, even on pop radio in the south (where I lived at the time), despite the “imagine no religion” part. Then, they suddenly stopped playing it at all as we moved into the Lee Greenwood phase of the post 9/11 era.
I also remember John Denver doing a version of it on David Letterman, only the song was about sporks, spoon-forks. It ended “Imagine all the spoon forks, helping man to eat, you can say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us, in a world where spoons and forks are one.”
Anyone know how I can find this on Hulu or whatever the kids are calling it these days?
Update. I think it was actually spoon-straws.
Update. Apparently Hulu hates Letterman, so no go. Consider this an open thread then.
Update. Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks!
by DougJ| 59 Comments
This post is in: Jump! You Fuckers!, Our Failed Media Experiment
Sometimes I feel like Bill Keller is trolling all of us:
Bored by the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street? Fed up (Fed Up!) with the presidential Race to the Bottom? Depressed by the warning signs of the next Depression?
What follows is a breezy tour through other countries (complete with a mix-up between Brazil and Venezuela, now corrected). Just as I am constantly amazed by the clueless sexism of libertarians when they pine for the days of “hot stewardesses”, I am amazed by the clueless, too-comfortable elitism of Times opinion writers.
Oh, those dirty hippies and their protests! Oh, those third-world shennanigans!
(via)
by Imani Gandy (ABL)| 195 Comments
This post is in: Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person
Here’s President Obama’s speech. (It was magnificent.):
Here’s the transcript:
This post is in: Open Threads, Pet Rescue
Concerning this weekend’s Emergency Pet Bleg:
I want to thank everyone again for all the donations to help Penny. It has been a more than usual hectic weekend for animal rescue in our area. This has caused me to be behind in my personal thank you notes to ALL who took the time, had the compassion and caring and generosity to help Penny. I promise that I will be in touch with everyone within the next 48 hours via email.
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As mentioned before, will give updates on results of her surgery and her recovery process with new pictures too when available.
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With gratitude,
Evelyn
Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue
Evelyn adds “Also trying to figure out how to get a calendar together ASAP for 2012. Will keep you posted.”
Open Thread: Thanks from Charlie’s AngelsPost + Comments (20)
This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!, Our Failed Media Experiment
Via the Benenator, this unsurprising chart:
One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-to-1. The assessments of the president in the media were substantially more negative than positive in every one of the 23 weeks studied. In no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the President positive in tone.
If the only thing you ever read was the comments section here, where a dozen or so disaffected loudmouths are constantly reminding us that Obama is the worst President ever and that everyone in the universe was an OBOT, this would be surprising to you. The reality, of course, is quite the opposite. This President has received a sustained drumbeat of criticism on blogs and in the media that is unlike anything I’ve seen. So, brave progressive truth tellers busy speaking truth to power because no one dare criticize the President, get over yourselves. If you paid attention to this weekend alone, where the President was flayed alive by some for sending 100 people to track down a murderous cult leader in an action authorized by Congress and begged for by HRW, this would be no shock.
The fact of the matter is that the outliers in the national conversation are the few people who say anything nice about Obama, not you highly principled misanthropes.
BTW- who will be the first to claim that JOHN COLE CAN NOT HANDLE DISSENT? My money is on Corner Stone.
by DougJ| 105 Comments
This post is in: Sports
I am a lifelong Red Sox fan. I used to be pretty hard-core, I remember the 1978 play-off game like it was yesterday. Nowadays, I dislike the structure of Major League Baseball, in particular the lack of a level playing field and the too-long play-off system, so much that I can’t get *that* into it all anymore.
One of the bizarre things about many Red Sox fans is the extent to which they focus on the non-baseball aspects of the game. By that, I mean the players’ facial hair, where the players live, how the players dress, where the manager goes to bet on the puppies (Zimmer era), and so on. In August, 2004, my uncle told me that year’s team would never go anywhere since they had too much long hair, too many beards, and not enough guys who wore suits on team flights; they ought to have rules about this, the way the Yankees do, that was the best thing Steinbrenner ever did. A few seasons later he told me that they were going nowhere because they were too uptight, too clean cut, and that didn’t give them the loosey-goosey attitude you need to come back when you’re behind in the late innings.
Apparently, the reason the Red Sox collapsed this year is that the pitchers were allowed to eat fried chicken in the clubhouse during the games when they weren’t pitching.
There’s something about all of this, the things the press picks on, that reminds me a lot of politics.