Category: Personal

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[phone scripter to the stars]

As many of you know, I have been pitching in a bit to help Steve Harrison’s Congressional campaign, mostly doing bits of writing and editing.

As part of that effort, I did some major editing of a phone script for automated calls, to be delivered by none other than President Bill Clinton. Someone from the Harrison campaign was kind enough to let me hear the finished product, and sure enough, Bill Clinton is reading the script I handed in!

I have been promised a WAV file, but not until after the campaign, just to be sure no obscure regulations or rules of protocol are violated. As soon as I get it, I will of course link to it.

In the meantime, there have been a lot of great developments on the Harrison front, including an extremely tepid endorsement of Fossella by the conservative Staten Island Advance (punchline: “On balance, [Fossela]’s the better candidate for Congress, though we’re less than thrilled to concede that”) and a very strong endorsement of Harrison from the New York Times. You can read all the latest news on Harrison at Blue Spot.

Go, team!

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[actual substance]

While the GOP attacks Kerry’s botched comments on Iraq, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee attacks the Republican Congress and the Bush administration for their botched war in Iraq. The difference couldn’t be clearer.


[Via Daily Kos.]

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[old media still matters]

In the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about the impact of new technologies and new sources of information on the political process. But the fact remains that the the mainstream media — newspapers, magazines, talk radio and especially television — still set the terms of our public discourse.

That’s why the video below is so satisfying: it’s the White House press corps literally laughing at and mocking the official Republican spin six days before the midterm elections. Mouthpiece Tony Snow, trying to get some traction with the irrelevant story about John Kerry’s unfortunate (and genuinely embarrassing) misstatement, claims he’s actually trying to help Kerry by offering him a chance to apologize. And the press corps are having none of it: listen for the question at the end.


This is just further evidence that the GOP is running a campaign almost entirely focused on fantasy. Keep in mind that John Kerry is, at the moment, merely the junior senator from Massachusetts, and not currently running for office. And he’s being attacked for a comment that was clearly a slip of the tongue — he failed to say out loud a few crucial words that were on the page in front of him.

What else have the Republicans got? In Virginia, Jim Webb is under attack for the sexual perversions included in his novels about men driven to depravity during the Vietnam War. He’s being attacked for depicting horrifying behavior in fiction, while the vice president is out declaring actual horrifying behavior to be a no-brainer. Rush Limbaugh displayed deep confusion between acting and reality when he accused Michael J. Fox of “acting” because he “depicted” the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which he actually has, instead of coming across smooth and polished, which he may no longer even be able to do.

Other than that, there are scary pictures of Osama Bin Laden — you know, the guy who attacked the United States during the Bush administration and remains at large. Oh, and in Tennessee, you have racist sexual innuendo, backed by nothing. And that’s pretty much it. Pure fantasy.

[Via TPM Cafe.]

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[sex and violence]

There has long been a debate over whether pornography encourages rape by normalizing misogyny and arousing passions, or discourages rape by providing an alternative outlet for lustful urges. Unfortunately, this debate has generally been religious rather than clinical: instead of basing their positions on data, partisans have created moral edifices around their underlying sense of what should be true.

According to an article in Slate, there is now meaningful evidence that access to Internet pornography reduces the incidence of rape. There is also evidence that violent movies reduce violent crime. Really. Check out the article and make up your own mind.

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[anjalic]

Mistress of Disguise | Seven X Eight | Feline Woman by Anjali

Twelve long years have passed since Portishead first unleashed Dummy upon an unsuspecting world, tapping into a deep, hitherto unnoticed craving for ethereal female vocals over moody, noir-tinged tracks with sophisticated electronic production and hip-hop beats. Eight years after Portishead’s final album, the revelatory PNYC Live, where can one turn to satisfy this peculiar, overly specific jones?

Well, if you’re willing to forgo the extraordinary Portishead scratching in favor of some sitar and don’t mind your spy movie music taking on an Austin Powers vibe, I suggest you give Anjali a try.

Formerly the drummer in UK Riot Grrl band the Voodoo Queens, Anjali Bhatia now claims descent from the Bhatti line of maharajas of Jaisalmer. Whether that’s true or not, her music has ventured as far from Riot Grrl radicalism as her identity. One can hear traces not only of UK trip-hop, but also of Cibo Matto and other late-nineties electronic experimenters, not to mention heavy doses of Anglo-Indian fusion, tinged with old-fashioned Bollywood goodness.

Find more MP3s at Bazaar Sounds, Anjali’s Beggar’s Banquet Site, and her personal web page.

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[is pot good for memory?]

In Dan Savage’s sex-advice column this week, wedged in there with all the raunchy stuff, is this remarkable quote:

Google “marijuana” … and wedged in there with the stories about this week’s numerous, ineffectual pot busts — so many pot busts, so little trouble buying pot — you’ll find this: A study conducted by the reputable Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient — tetrahydrocannabinol or THC — is more effective at preventing Alzheimer’s disease than any of the legal drugs on the market today.

Sure enough, here’s the Scripps press release. How ironic would it be if marijuana turned out to be good for your memory?

Disregarding the larger debate over legalizing recreational possession and use of marijuana (Nevada and Colorado will be voting this November on whether to do just that), the Scripps study strikes me as yet more evidence that the federal government’s opposition to even medical use and study of marijuana is faith-based — and not necessarily in good faith, either. It’s just one more way our government is replacing science and factual evidence with fantasies and baseless fear.

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[agast report]

For all those in search of my AGAST report, don’t worry. It’s on the way, but it’ll take me some time to organize all my notes and write the thing up. If you’re one of the many artists I met on Saturday and Sunday, thanks for stopping by, and I’ll send you an email when I post the article.

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[brooklyn and queens by the numbers]

Gothamist has a fascinating post that demonstrates just how closely population density is related to subway access in Brooklyn and Queens. The graphic, unlike the official MTA subway map, is to scale, and it reveals just how much more to Brooklyn and especially Queens there is beyond the reach of the trains.

Most of us who live subway-oriented New York lives have little notion of what exactly is out there in those territories beyond the subway. Who lives there? Where do they work? How do they get around What do the neighborhoods look like?

It also raises the question of what, if anything, the MTA is doing to expand subway service and bring those less densely populated areas into the NYC fold, so to speak. After all, population pressures are intense along the main subway lines, and the whole purpose of the subway from its beginning was to get people out of the overpopulated sections and spread them across the five boroughs.