Heartache With Hard Work

Taking a stroll around the youtubes…

I have a friend working with the One Iowa campaign, building support for the Court ruling on marriage equality so that when it comes time for the possibility of an amendment to overrule it that people have gotten the message and don’t have any interest in rolling back rights.

One thing I really appreciate is how they seem to have incorporated a lot of the lessons from the failed No on 8 efforts. For one, this is not a timid ad. There’s no dancing around the issue, no fear of saying what this is really about. A lot of the California ads were so vague you hardly knew that they were about gay marriage unless you already were familiar with the Initiative.

But the best evidence consistently seems to suggest that the more people are exposed to the idea, and the more it becomes apparent that this is not an issue that’s going to go away or be pushed back in the closet, the more they come to recognize it as a real matter of discrimination. Which basically means that you want ads that are clear and honest, that tie in the very real question of basic values at stake into the fact that there are a lot of gay people in the world, and they are just normal folks like anyone else.

That’s why I’m excited to see efforts to make gay marriage seem normal and standard, because I have a feeling that if people are given that message, they’ll actually have to face up to what these marriage bans really mean. And I have faith in this country. I think that people support “traditional” marriage because they haven’t really thought it through, more than anything else. Ads like this help to ensure that when the next vote comes up, a lot more people will be on the side of freedom, love, and families.

* * *

The major youtube sensation of the recent times is Susan Boyle, the contestant on Britain’s Got Talent (apparently a very popular show over in the UK which I had never heard of until this week). There’s a lot of fairly predictable (and perfectly reasonable) commentary about this. Some point out how sad it is that we appear to be collectively stunned that someone who doesn’t look like a movie star can actually sing.

Others note that it is hardly the “victory” that it seems because implicit in the story is the idea that we were all wrong to snicker at her only because she happens to possess this monumental talent. The idea being that such folks are absolute exceptions, the diamonds in the rough. That’s a particularly unpleasant thought because it suggests that a big ‘moment’ like this may only serve to reinforce precisely what it’s supposed to criticize.

Basically, there’s lots of room for wondering whether stories like this really have a point. Is this a reason why we shouldn’t be so critical of the utter vapidity of the modern trend for reality programming? Or is it the opposite? Does this mean something about the value we place on appearance? And so on.

All that is fair enough, but honestly I think it’s asking a bit much for one song to mean that much. Moments like this capture our attention because they come out of nowhere. And they stun us because they’re little microcosms for what we all in our hearts really want to believe: that every person deserves to have a moment when they get to shine. That every person in the world has a chance to for incandescence – for their dream to be fulfilled.

All the little details, and the ‘underdog’ element of the story is what gives it drama, but underneath it, the one thing that doesn’t need to be questioned or criticized or analyzed is the basic fact that this woman can sing, and in this world there’s always a chance for those who aspire to beauty.

We don’t want to forget all the messy questions that get raised, but we also don’t need to feel guilty about sharing in the moment.

As the Little Things Go – the Appleseed Cast

I’ve enjoyed The Appleseed Cast for a long time, but never managed to really get into them. Part of the problem is that I enjoyed their more direct, straightforward emo-heavy rock stuff and felt pretty distant from the more abstract post-rock, experimental stuff. In fact, I absolutely LOVED Christopher Crisci’s side project The Old Canes precisely because it stripped away all that excess sound and just offered some beautiful little folk-pop gems.

So it’s weird that their latest record Sagarmatha is easily my favorite that they’ve done, given that it contains zero songs that could reasonably be considered straight-head rock songs. I’m not quite sure I can put my finger on what it is about this album that appeals in a way that the others never quite did.

My best guess is that it feels far more restrained. Instead of straining for some kind of post-rock masterpiece, it moves at a far more leisurely pace. What’s more, it’s a question of the type of experimental sound they’ve put together. The wonderful thing about Sagarmatha is that the individual bits and pieces are thoroughly traditional. Looked at individually, they don’t seem particularly unique or intriguing. But the complexity is built through the delicate process of layering, staging, and timing.

The best song, album opener “As the Little Things Go” offers almost five full minutes of gentle ambience and dancing guitar loops to ease you gently into a world of quiet imagination, with liquid walls and flickering shapes. And when the big guitar waves finally hit, you’re ready to go wherever they may take you.

That track also exemplifies another feature of this album: the incredibly sparse use of vocals. It’s well over 6 minutes in before they show up – but I can’t say that there’s any part of this album that feels incomplete due to missing vocals. Which is weird because that’s usually the most important part of music for me, and particularly so with the other efforts from this band.

But there it is. I guess that what I really appreciate about vocals is the way they communicate the little things. The tiny differences between us. Not just through lyrics, but through the way that the voice sounds. I love songs where you can only truly understand the point because of the way the singer inhabits the words, makes them her own, lives them. Of course it’s possible to do that through any medium, but at least for me purely instrumental stuff is a lot harder to make work.

Here, though, that sense of personality is communicated another way: through ebbs and flows of sound, in the delicate attention paid to the shape of sounds. The end result is a record that moves with a smoothness and grace that defies expectation. It seldom goes big, which makes the few exceptions all the more stunning. And if there are few stand-out moments, that’s because it’s a rumination on precisely those many endless moments in between the highlights.

It’s the sound of a city after everyone is asleep. It’s a fairytale just after the final page has been read. It’s the moment when you realize that you’re dreaming but can’t quite remember what that means.

Subtle Changes – Sambassadeur

I meant to write about this a few days ago but then it slipped my mind. But it’s not really time sensitive, so perhaps it’s worth saying anyways.

The latest New York Times/CBS poll had a question about support for free trade. I initially saw it reported (unfortunately I can’t remember where to link to) just in terms of the baseline result, something to the effect of: “60 percent of Americans support restrictions on free trade.” Phrased that way, it sounds pretty extreme. People are really worried about the economy and expressing it through a (potentially very legitimate) distrust of free trade.

However, once you actually look at the question, it suggests something very different. The exact wording is as follows: “Which of the following statements comes closer to your opinion – trade restrictions are necessary to protect domestic industries, OR free trade must be allowed, even if domestic industries are hurt by foreign competition?”

Is it really that surprising that the results came out strongly in favor of protection? If you state clearly the potential harm of an approach without suggesting that it will produce any positive gain, OBVIOUSLY people will tend to distrust it. Given that “free trade” is such a vague concept anyways, it’s perfectly reasonable for people to adopt the cues in the question and answer accordingly.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that per se. There’s no such thing as a perfectly objective question, so it’s pointless to ask for one. The problem starts when questions like these are referenced second and third-hand to support sweeping claims that are not backed by the data. To take that poll response and conclude “Americans are against free trade” for example would be quite silly.

One thing that helps militate against that sort of misuse is that they’ve got quite a bit of context for these results – in the form of responses going back 20 years to the very same question. And what’s most amazing about that is the relative stability of public attitudes. It was 56/34 in 1988, only a few points off the current ratio of 60/28. Last spring was actually the high water mark for the protectionist side (68/24), but things have actually declined significantly since then.

And over the 20 years, things have generally held pretty close to a 60/30 margin, leaning a few points in either direction but not moving all that much.

All of which is a long way of saying that the simple story of “economic trouble provokes protectionism” might deserve some re-thinking. At least, not this time around. The early 90s recession did, however, seem to cause a relatively large re-evaluation, which supports the general perception that Perot’s candidacy tapped into a rising sentiment about the “giant sucking sound” to the south. Still, a 10 point swing may be significant but it still suggests that there’s a relatively stable consensus on this question with a great deal of durability. In the same vein, it doesn’t seem obvious that an economic boom does much either. Attitudes didn’t noticeably change throughout the 90s.

All of which is to say: politics is often about the margins. We like to think in grand terms about major changes. And we like to imagine that each election is a sweeping referendum on an entire boat of ideas and attitudes. However, generally speaking the public seems to move sluggishly – if at all. We have a partisan system which means that a relatively small change in the voting patterns (say, 5%) is sufficient to radically alter the executive’s agenda.

Of course, due to countermajoritarian institutions like the Senate, those changes often end up being a lot less radical than you might expect. Whether you think that’s good or bad is a subject for another day.

Halcyon Days – …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
Fields of Coal – …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead

I was first introduced to …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead through their breakthrough 2002 album Source Tags and Codes which famously, and contentiously, was given a perfect 10.0 by Pitchfork. And yes, it might very well have been that good. It crackled with frenetic energy, it pulsated. It was the sound of an entire generation of music tearing itself to shreds. It was violent, but in a way that felt joyful rather than threatening. And it was capped off my the suite of “Relative Ways,” “After the Laughter,” and “Source Tags and Codes” – which remains one of my all-time favorite album closings. Unfortunately, everything since then has left me thoroughly unsatisfied. Until now.

Which is not to say that The Century of Self is anything close to as good as Source Tags and Codes. That would be a bridge too far. It is, however, the first time that I’ve sensed the same sort of forcefulness that burst out of the speakers on that record. I appreciate that they wanted to change things up, but I’m not sure the prog and world music adventures of their past few years served them well. This time around there’s still a LOT of excess – tracks that bleed out past 6 minutes, codas that crackle and hiss, dips and dives through the movements of miniature rock operas – but it’s excess that feels essential, if that makes any kind of sense at all.

The core thing is that, once again, these guys sound like they’re making music that exists for no other reason than to tear everything apart, so that it can be rebuilt from the bottom up, without any of the pretense. Hearts are broken, fields covered in flames, and on the horizon you can see a great dark mass emerging to assert its place.

So sure, this album is overstuffed and some of the songs might be improved by some serious trimming. Absolutely, some of the interludes (particularly “Insatiable One” and “Insatiable Two” – inexplicably packed together at the end) are dull and pointless. And no one could argue that it’s a particularly tight album.

But in spite of all that, there is a magnificent record to be found here in the midst of the madness. It is precisely that madness which sets it free from the vast majority of music, which is “nothing but petty sectarianism, mere rococo of the soul, mere involutions, nooks, queer things, the air of the convectible, not to forget an occasional whiff of bucolic mawkishness…a garrulousness of feeling that almost stupefies; impassioned vehemence, not passion; embarrassing gesticulation.” Instead, this is the sound of Zarathustra, standing astride the world, full of contempt for all those who live their lives of quiet desperation. It is a record that will leap – without fear or concern – full force into the galewinds.

Mistakes are made, but they are noble ones, made in good conscience, and with a will that faces only forward: ready for whatever joyous carnage may be unleashed over the next hill.

As someone who drinks a rather excessive amount of tea, I was excited to hear about all the tea parties around the country yesterday. Finally something that conservative America and I could agree on…

Unfortunately, it turns out that rather than being celebrations of a delightful beverage, these were instead inchoate criticisms of…I’m not sure what exactly.

To be clear, I don’t mean to imply that protest is worthless or that they shouldn’t be welcome to express their political ideas through public engagement. Sure, there are a lot of jokes to be made about the apparent lack of awareness on the part of the organizers that tea-bagging means something other than what they intended.

And it’s a bit hard to take them seriously given the relative incoherence of the project. After all, protesting the high rate of taxes when the overwhelming majority of the country is set to receive a tax cut is a little odd. And protesting high rates of spending in this particular moment, after eight years of reckless spending from the Bush administration also feels a bit disingenuous. Add in the fact that the original tea party was about taxation WITHOUT REPRESENTATION and then ask yourself exactly what is the problem here.

Still, it’s not like there aren’t legitimate differences of opinion here. And I’m willing to accept that there is plenty of room for nuance. The position that government spending is out of control when it is high AND devoted to projects with which you disagree is certainly reasonable. And to the extent that such a position is meant to be reflected here, well that’s fine.

That said, I do have two niggling concerns. First, the whole dynamic of these events was explicitly designed to militate against that sort of nuance. While such a position would be consistent with the tea parties in the abstract, in the real world these events were all about trying to tap into populist rage. It’s not about making measured objections; it’s about lashing out wildly, trying to find someone to blame. I’m not saying that’s what all (or even most, perhaps) of the individuals involved were doing, but it was the general ethos of the entire day.

And as I’ve argued before, I’m deeply skeptical of that sort of fear-mongering as a basis for political organization. All in all, these events reminded me far too much of the McCain rallies that got so much coverage six months ago.

My second concern has nothing to do with the protests themselves, but rather is about the coverage of it. I’m not saying this is a fully representative example, but I happened to notice on 538 that my little home town of Oak Harbor had its own tea party. I clicked on the link and encountered this headline: “Patriotic crowd throws ‘tea party’ in Oak Harbor.” Now, I remember picking up a copy of the Whidbey News Times back in 2003, and I am pretty sure that the Iraq war protests were not referred to as patriotic.

What that says to me is that we’ve still got a long way to go in remembering that there’s a lot more to patriotism than an obsessive individualism and resistance to the government. For instance, paying taxes is patriotic. It’s a small thing, but patriotism is only meaningful insofar as it represents many small things. And in that context, there is nothing more patriotic than affirming the greatness of a country that cares for ALL of its citizens, a country which recognizes the existence of public goods in need of protection.

Long Walk Home – Bruce Springsteen

As is often the case, I return to The Boss:

My father said “Son, we’re lucky in this town
It’s a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
You know flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we’ll do and what we won’t.”

The beauty of America is the balance we always try to find between letting people be who and what they want to be, and the insistence that there is something greater than merely a bunch of isolated individuals: a collective concern for each other that transcends our selfish interests. Taxes clearly aren’t always spent wisely, or for things that we personally want. But we pay them anyways because we believe in an America that means something more than that, one where nobody has to go it alone.

Stars Were Exploding – Good Luck

Quick, dirty, melodic, exuberant. It comes and goes before you get a chance to dig deep. And that is how it should be, because there’s something beautiful about a song that hits you hard but never quite gives you a chance to understand what happened.

A star can burn for millions of years, and it’s good that they do because otherwise we could never be here in the first place. But still you need for them to explode, too. If they simply burned forever the whole universe would be hydrogen and helium and a very dull place. We only get the mad, beautiful world as it is because of explosive bursts that burn away the old and turn them into new elements that form into the ground under our feet, the food we eat, and the people that we love.

Good Luck write DIY pop-punk songs with scorching guitar lines and a whole lot of passion. Into Lake Griffy came out last year, but I didn’t discover it until a few months ago unfortunately.

Dollhouse – A Spy in the House of Love

Another good, verging on very good, episode. It was one of the more exciting ones in terms of plot. The small mystery of the story was tense and interesting, and the hints dropped for the larger arc of the show were also tantalizing. Still, it was missing the certain je nais sais quoi that made Man on the Street the only episode that has really stood out so far.

Some scattered thoughts:

– I really like seeing Adele outside of the strict confines of her role as boss. I especially like seeing her as subject to the same weaknesses we see in the clients of the Dollhouse. It’s particularly good to recognize that a full (inside) awareness of the “fakeness” of the Dollhouse doesn’t prevent someone from making use of it.

Even more, it invites a serious question about the difference between the handler who was done away with for raping Sierra and Adele who uses Victor for the same purpose without his consent. Obviously it feels a lot different – if only because of what it reveals about the desire of the user. The handler wanted dominant, violent control. He wanted to assert ownership over a thing. Adele, on the other hand, wants an equal, someone with whom she can be herself (or, at least what she perceives as her “real” self), someone who will actually take a dominant role with her.

– Once again, they’ve laid out more and more levels of confusion and intrigue. I do appreciate this, under the assumption that they know where things are going and these aren’t pointless pathways. In order to keep us interested, at some point, they need to start resolving some of these bits and pieces and move onto others. For example, I’m not sure how long we can go without knowing what the dollhouse is actually for, whether “they” (whoever they might be) want Echo to go off program or not, whether there is a mole communicating with Ballard through Echo and Mellie or if it’s just the Dollhouse manipulating him, etc.

– Enver Gjokaj (Victor) is great. There’s been a lot of justified praise in reviews I’ve read for Dichen Lachman (Sierra) and Olivia Williams (Adele), but for my money, Gjokaj has by far been the most impressive. He consistently plays a variety of characters and gives them all a unique style and sense of personality.

– The scene where Mellie returns was very well done. And I think it reveals something deeply troubling about Ballard that he was able to so easily accept it and act like nothing had changed when the Mellie personality came back. I know in a lot of ways he’s the Good Guy (as would be traditionally understood), so I like that we actually see a lot of the ways in which he is seriously disturbed. And I’m curious to see if they keep working that angle. I’d love for Ballard to end up being the villain.

– What exactly do the dolls think when they first come out of the imprinting process? They start getting at this question with Mellie and frankly it doesn’t make sense. She talks about taking the red-eye, and clearly recognize Echo as Caroline to some extent. But obviously “Mellie” – if she remembered ANY of this would desperately want to try and help Ballard. What’s more, there are others (Echo in this episode for example) who come out from the chair and immediately are active and aware of the situation. Are we just supposed to believe that Topher can so perfectly imprint the mind of the actives that none of this stuff matters?

– Speaking of elements of the plot didn’t really make sense, how did the mole know to send out a warning to Ballard immediately before the spy chip was discovered? Presumably, this is meant to suggest that things are more complicated than they initially seem. It seems pretty likely that there is more than one mole, or that the whole notion of a mole is less simple than it appears here. That said, the argument that “things will make sense eventually” is a question of faith. And I’m still not entirely willing to overlook plot holes in the hopes that they will eventually be clarified.

Overall reaction: this show still has plenty of flaws, but after the mishmash and stumbling of the first five weeks, I’m starting to feel a lot more confident that Joss knows what he’s doing.
It feels like a show that is trying to do things – and occasionally succeeding. If it stays at this level of quality, I will definitely keep watching and will be disappointed at the seemingly inevitable cancellation. And if the hints and promises ever materialize for a run of episodes that take things to the next level, it could be a genuinely good show.

I Love You Too – S

Everyone and their kid brother is going to be getting a gay marriage…as long as they live in Iowa or Vermont. But seriously, this is great. The Iowa decision in particular was pretty unexpected. And while it can be rolled back by popular mandate, it’ll take a few years. What’s more, there doesn’t appear to be any interest in doing so now, and marriage equality grows in popularity the longer it sticks around and the world doesn’t end. Taking all that into account, I’d say that gay marriage in Iowa is here to stay.

The Vermont case is even better because it not only passed the legislature but got enough votes to override the preposterously stupid veto of soon-to-be-ex-governor Jim Douglas. While I personally don’t care all that much about the idea that these gay marriage decisions are a problem when they’re handed down by courts, the fact that at least one state has legalized it through old-fashioned legislation knocks out one more leg from the increasingly precarious table of marriage discrimination.

Throw in the fact that gay marriage might get debated for DC – and the fact that it could very well result in a bunch of closet supporters in Congress actually lending a vote to the cause – and there’s a lot of reason to be optimistic.

Now, I’m not saying the fight is over. It’s only barely just begun in fact. And as Martin Luther King said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Which means there’s no reason to be satisfied until anyone anywhere is free to love whomever they like, freely, and without fear of discrimination. That struggle will never be over. Gay marriage is only one (admittedly very important in terms of symbolism) part of it.

Still, considering how despondent I was four and a half years ago, in the aftermath of that horrible 2004 election, things are really looking up again. The tides of history have turned – and I think it’s for good this time. I wrote something two years ago predicting this, but I have to admit that things are looking even better than I would have imagined…even factoring in the crushing blow that was Prop 8.

The important thing to remember is that 30 years from now people will look back in shame and wonder how a nation could have been so stupid and hateful for so long. The more people are forced to face up to the idea of what this discrimination means, the more untenable the position becomes. So it’s gonna be a long road, and there will be new setbacks, but we’re going to win.

And on a more personal note…I’m obviously thrilled about Iowa and Vermont. But there’s another part of me that is just so angry that it’s the year 2009 and I’m excited about people who love each other being free to get married in four states. It’s still difficult for me to believe that I’ve lived my entire life in places where the state thinks that it’s their business to pass judgment on the feelings shared between two people. It’s just crazy. And while history is on our side, it still makes me sad to think about people who have lived for years and not been allowed to get married, who still live in one of the many, many states that won’t recognize that marriage even if it’s performed somewhere else, who have been told that the way that they feel is less real or genuine than every single straight person in the universe.

Out here in California, there’s going to be another chance to set things right. And all I can say to my newly adopted state: please get it right this time.

I Needed You – Purplespace
I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer – The Cardigans

Dollhouse – Needs

I missed reviewing the previous two episodes of Dollhouse, which is unfortunate because they were the only two so far that really deserved a lot of attention. Compared to what came before, they were better, more interesting, and suggestive that this thing might actually be going somewhere. The Man on the Street was legitimately great, answering a few questions but asking many more, finally putting Echo and Paul face to face, turning Mellie into a real person instead of a simpering, lovesick fool, and then turning Mellie into a doll. Even more, it started to pose some of the meta-questions about the Dollhouse in more sophisticated terms than the paint-by-numbers of the first few episodes.

Echoes wasn’t nearly as good, but I still thought it had a lot to offer. The premise was silly and felt forced, but there were quite a few very good moments.

For more thoughts on those episodes check out the links, because Hazel pretty much says what I thought about them.

As for this week…I’m of two minds. I think it was the best episode apart from “Man on the Street” and yet there are parts of it which feel quite unsatisfying. Particularly the ending, which implies that all of the ‘progress’ so far has been wiped away.

That said, I think this episode was very good as an example of how the desire to tell pessimistic stories can be achieved in good ways. Rather than simply killing off the most relatable characters (Tara, Wash, etc.) Joss seems to have trying out new method: burying the people we most want to know beneath the weight of the Dollhouse.

The very best thing about this episode, in my mind, is just how real the “true” personalities of the Actives felt. Now that we’ve gotten to know them in their doll forms, it was shocking – and enlightening – to see the part that’s been trying to escape.

And I think that they’ve started to do some fascinating things with the relationship between those emerging cracks and the heaviness of the Dollhouse’s influence.

It’s not a coincidence that the characters I most care about on the show are Echo, Caroline, Victor, and Mellie. Or rather, the characters I most care about are the amalgamations of those people and their real selves. Most of the non-doll characters have elements that are enjoyable but are also deeply troubling in a variety of ways.

Along those lines, this episode was also very good because of the way it played with the larger question of the morality of the Dollhouse. Things that we take for granted as an audience (even an audience attuned to the potential questions that ought to be asked) are thrown into sharp relief when the dolls are suddenly restored to consciousness. Their immediate sense that something is badly wrong – and the absolute shock and horror they feel as the truth unfolds – serves as a powerful reminder that the Dollhouse is not a Nice Place.

For me at least, I found some strange emotions. Even as the events of the episode were helping to solidify just how horrific the entire premise really is, I strangely found myself rooting for the Dollhouse. Or if not rooting for, at least worried about them. Topher sucks and if he got his mind wiped it would be nothing more than what he deserves. And yet, I didn’t want anything significant to happen. I was hoping that it would all work out with no major trouble and all the dolls would be returned.

Because I don’t want a single moment of revolutionary violence to destroy the Dollhouse. I want all the complications and intricacies to be given the chance to unwind. I want to hear the justifications. I want to know if Alpha was right to go on a rampage. I want to see it all happen.

But at the same time, there’s this awful kernel which says: you’re asking for these people to be restored to an unthinking slavery. And even though it’s not real, the voyeuristic element is troubling.

And then there’s the story that the Actives have voluntarily joined up in order to shield themselves from troubling memories. I don’t buy it, precisely, but I do think it’s interesting if nothing else as an example of how people will try to justify the terrible things they do to others. The coercion involved in the recruitment is obvious (it was clearly shown in the previous episode and it’s made pretty clear this time that Sierra was placed in there by a rich sexual harasser). Still, there’s something there in the idea. Surely some people *would* voluntarily join up.

Some would do it for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reasons (which invites another fascinating parallel between how that movie made this technology seem quirky while Dollhouse turns it into something shocking and horrible), while others would simply like the idea of an existence filled with happiness and no memory. What else is it but a dream of perfect immanence: an endless and eternal now, with none of the concerns posed by the possibility of duration.

And yet, that very idea is deeply deeply troubling to our basic notion of humanity. Our Enlightenment attitudes declare human to be precisely that which wills continuously. Does our society have a way for accounting humanity other than to resolve it through a consciousness which endures and connects the fleeting perceptions of a particular moment into an imagined history? What else could we possibly mean by justice or peace or happiness except that these are things possessed by a Self that is capable of understanding and appreciating them?

Is that why the concept of the Dollhouse is so troubling when you start to unpack what it entails? Is it because it represents something that appeals to a part of us that we don’t normally like to acknowledge? Not just in what it offers to its clients (willing slaves), but also because of what it offers to its employees (life without memory)?

There’s a Law – The Disciplines

Here’s a great track from Ken Stringfellow (of the Posies) and his new band The Disciplines. They’re centered in Norway, apparently, and no I don’t have any idea how Ken Stringfellow ended up in Norway. I’ll admit that I was always a bit more of Jon Auer guy, but there’s a lot to like here. It’s a bit dirtier and bigger than The Posies, but it’s got all the 90s-era guitar riffs and big hooks you could ever want.

The record is called Smoking Kills and if you miss the Posies, you’ll almost certainly want to pick it up.

In other news, here’s some things that caught my attention over the past couple days:

* This Thai vegetarian festival sounds like the most awesome thing in basically ever.

* David Sirota is hyperventilating about something stupid. Shock of all shocks.

* Voice mail is the worst, and I’m glad that it appears to be dying. Good riddance. My only concern is that in our future no-voicemail utopia, there will be no more Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.

* Tim DeChristopher, the guy who brilliantly interfered with the (possibly) illegal and (definitely) horrible land auctions the BLM conducted at the very end of Bush’s term, is now facing 10 years of jail time for his civil disobedience. He showed up, was let into the auction and started bidding up prices. Before long, he ended up “buying” a ton of land. They ended up postponing the auction soon after. And, as it turns out, his complaints were fully justified because it never got off the ground again. The new Interior Secretary in fact cancelled the very parcels that were purchased by DeChristopher.

That means he was vindicated, right? Well, not in our America – where the people who tried to sell off the land receive no punishment and DeChristopher has felony charges slapped on him.

The result: comments like this:

Tim DeChristopher has no chance of serving 10 years in federal prison for monkey-wrenching an oil and gas lease sale as an act of civil disobedience. So says his prosecutor, who predicts the University of Utah student won’t even serve five years if convicted of two felonies for placing bogus bids at a December auction.

I’m sure that’s comforting, knowing that he will only face several years in jail for the crime of calling attention to and disrupting a sell-off of federal land to oil interests conducted in the waning days of an old, corrupt administration.

Look, in principle the law is important and shouldn’t be pushed aside. But when it’s regularly sidestepped in favor of corporate interests, and when the person conducting the civil disobedience has subsequently been proven correct, how can it possibly be reasonable to do anything other than exercise a little bit of discretion and let the case go?

The prosector says “The easy road was not to prosecute. The political road was not to prosecute” as if we’re supposed to be impressed with him taking on entrenched political interests as embodied in a 27 year old environmentalist.