If you want to understand white people, you need to understand indie music. As mentioned before, white people hate anything that’s “mainstream” and are desperate to find things that are more genuine, unique, and reflective of their experiences.
Fortunately, they have independent music.
A white person’s iPod (formerly CD collection) is not merely an assemblage of music that they enjoy. It is what defines them as a person. They are always on the look out for the latest hot band that no one has heard of so that one day, they can hit it just right and be into a band BEFORE they are featured in an Apple commercial.
UPDATE: also via Illka, Half-Sigma highlights a SWPL commenter’s guess at the ethnicity of the blog’s author. Right or not, there’s a lot of interesting (well, to me) info there about Asian-American culture.
What was especially noteworthy about his Virginia speech were the diversions Obama took from the prepared text. Because of Obama’s improvised moments, this speech was different than the usual fare he offers. We didn’t get the normal dosages of post-partisanship or even “elevation.” Virtually every time Obama deviated from the text, he expressed the partisan anger that has so poisoned the Democratic party. His spontaneous comments eschewed the conciliatory and optimistic tone that has made the Obama campaign such a phenomenon. It looked like the spirit of John Edwards or Howard Dean had possessed Obama every time he vamped. While Paul Krugman probably loved it, this different Obama was a far less attractive one.
[...]
What makes Obama’s Jefferson-Jackson speech especially relevant is where he went when he went off script. The unifying Obama who has impressed so many people during this campaign season vanished, replaced by just another angry liberal railing against George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Exxon Mobil, and other long standing Democratic piñatas. The pressing question that Obama’s decidedly uninspiring Jefferson-Jackson oratory raises is which Obama is the real Obama–the one who read beautifully crafted words from a Teleprompter after his victory in Iowa, or the tediously angry liberal who improvised in Virginia?
Maybe we can elect whoever it is who’s writing his speeches.
I’ve been reading quite a bit in the last few weeks - making sure I’m getting my moneys worth from Amazon Prime.
I ordered “The Boy, Me, and the Cat” by Henry Plummer. Mr. Plummer, his son and Scotty the cat sailed from Buzzard’s Bay down to Florida and back, almost 3,000 miles, on a 24 foot Cape Cod catboat in 1912. How do I know its going to be good? From the back cover:
…to supplement their stores, Plummer took along a .22 rifle, fitted with a silencer, which they named “Helen Keller.”
With the loose change found under the couch cushions of a third-tier Hollywood producer, France has launched its most expensive movie - sorry, “film” - ever: Asterix at the Olympic Games. TIME magazine tells us:
A Gallic national treasure, Asterix is revered and adored by the French far more than even Mickey Mouse is by Americans.
I revere and adore Asterix more than Mickey Mouse, myself - who wouldn’t? Anyway, I’ll have to rent this series sometime, Asterix is awesome (aside: those wanting to instill a love of reading into any young children they may have should get right to it). And for the Hollywood remake - yeah, never happen, and probably shouldn’t - I’d nominate Steve Zahn for the part of Asterix.
And how odd to be blogging about Asterix andTintin, two of my favorite comics from my elementary school years, on the same day.
Slipping mad props for one of your favorite artists into an only semi-related product review! Well done, anonymous Boston Globe Business writer, well done!
One of the high-commanders of the Police force stated a few days ago that in 63% of cases of murder with a female victim, women are killed by a family member and that “the Police cannot intervene in these cases”
I’ve read in more than one Robert Kaplan book that violence and crime are far less of a problem in Arab Muslim states than in similarly “less developed” places like West Africa. Though apparently the streets are safer than the home, for some.
NEW CASTLE, Colo. — A tactical law enforcement team broke into Tom Shiflett’s home and took his 11-year-old son to hospital for court-ordered medical treatment for a minor head injury.
Garfield County’s All Hazards Response Team raided the home Friday night, a day after Jon Shiflett fell after grabbing the handle of a moving car. The child was returned to the family at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, hours after the raid.
