Heartache With Hard Work

I Think I Need A New Heart – The Magnetic Fields

Sarah Palin wants to amend the US Constitution to permanently prohibit gay marriage. There’s nothing surprising about this, given how far right she is on cultural issues. Except…

Her stance on abortion is that it should be “up to the states.” Presumably it’s perfectly okay for (in her mind) millions of little babies to be aborted as long as there’s just 51% support in a particular state for it. Two consenting adults who love each other want to have a wedding, though, and it’s time to attack them with the full weight of the Constitution…

Does she really think that some gay people getting married is worse than millions of abortions? Of course not, but there’s nothing new about this sort of dissembling. But this juxtaposition helps clarify something important. They’re all about regulating sexuality of people who aren’t like them. State by state abortion restrictions would be relatively easy to navigate for people with money. The only people who be seriously limited in terms of safe access would be poor people and those in potentially abusive situations. Children who don’t have supportive parents. Wives with jealous husbands. Poor women in Mississippi who lack the funds. Sure, they’d like an amendment banning abortion but for their purposes the federalism dodge pretty much accomplishes the goal (with the added benefit that when their rich white daughters get pregnant, it’s no hassle to get a quiet abortion, if they so desire).

I know it will never happen, but I still hold out hope of journalists at some point pressing these people on these questions. You think abortion is murder but you don’t support any punishment for the woman who has it done? Why is that? You think abortion is murder, but are happy to let a bare majority in a state make it available to anyone who can pay to get there? And yet, you clearly have no issue with writing discrimination into the Constitution given your stance on a marriage amendment.

So why aren’t you willing to go that far on abortion? Is it because you know that 50% of the population is women who would collectively destroy you and your party if you went that far? Whereas gay people are a smaller minority so you feel no electoral heat there? Isn’t that a disgusting attitude to take?

It’s also funny given the current ranting and raving about Obama’s socialism to note that it is Palin herself who supports intrusive and complete governmental intervention into the social and cultural lives of America. As pleasant as I’m sure Communist Romania was, I think I’ll stick with legalized abortion thanks very much.

Suna – radicalfashion
Ballet – radicalfashion

There’s something vaguely discomforting here. I reach for words and come up just short.

It’s the feeling you get when a streetlight goes out just as you step underneath it. Or when you open the door to a room where someone left the window open on a cold night and you’re met by a gust of chilling, cold air. It’s a traffic accident in slow motion. It’s the sound of rain in space. There’s a hidden terror in here – and a picture buried in the midst of a thousand striking lines.

None of that sounds particularly pleasant does it? And yet, it’s strangely fascinating. And so I try again:

A mad play, with a background of metallic trees and stagelights that flicker and pulse like lightning bugs dancing in the night. On stage, the actors seem to flit in and out of sight. And behind them you notice deep, slowly moving shadows.

A man, alone in a room, eyes closed and mind drifting. He sees the town of his birth, as it was when he was a child. He walks the streets – empty, abandoned. A dining room table: dinner prepared but no one to eat it. A playground: a broken slide and a torn up field. There is no breeze, but the leaves on the trees rustle. And he feels on his cheek, a touch, a breath. An echo of someone he once knew well but now can hardly picture.

A world shifting in and out of focus. And in those brief moments of clarity you see, every time, a different face. And you wonder: am I going mad or is it only a dream? Or is there another option somewhere in between?

The band is radicalfashion and the record is called Odori. It came out last year, and it comes with both my recommendation and my misgivings.

Newsweek has published two articles on the question of the general zeitgeist of the American public.

The first, from Jon Meacham, is a meandering tour through his own consciousness which (he feels confident) is a perfectly acceptable stand-in for the general state of the values and ideology expressed by a country of 300 million people. He acknowledges the electoral tides sweeping in Democrats all across the country, and yet still insists that “America remains a center-right nation.”

Curiously, this bold premise is not backed up by any actual data. Instead, we are treated to a number of anecdotes and constant references to the fact that Clinton over-reached in 1992.

His entire point seems to build off the idea that the huge Blue wave is some sort of accident of history where voters are only turning to Democrats because they’re not happy about the economy and Iraq. It’s not that the country actually agrees with the Democrats, Meacham proposes, it’s that unique circumstances have allowed them to gain the upper hand.

Completely missing from this analysis is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the nation blames Republicans (and their philosophies of government) for those problems, and desires a progressive change. As I pointed out just a couple of days ago, what articles like this truly reveal is how far out of touch the authors are – that Meacham is unable to connect the dots tells us nothing about what the public at large thinks.

Meacham’s a premise built on false equivalencies and misdirections.

For example, he says: “Since 1968, Democrats have won only three of 10 general elections (1976, 1992 and 1996), and in those years they were led by Southern Baptist nominees who ran away from the liberal label.” Fine. But I could just as easily say that since 1960, Democrats have won 6 of 12 elections (regardless of who took office, Gore obviously received more actual votes, and there’s a strong chance that if the Court had not stepped in he may have taken the Electoral count as well), and they look poised to win this year, as well.

Want evidence that Obama is a closet conservation? Meacham can oblige: “Obama opposes gay marriage; talks about tax cuts, God and veterans’ benefits; and is spending money to try to remain competitive in traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, North Carolina and even West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton trounced him earlier this year.” He’s campaigning in the South! Oh noes! And of course no mention of the fact that those tax cuts are targeted at the lower and middle classes – a repudiation of the conservative tax cutting philosophy. No mention of health care. No mention of energy. No mention of reproductive choice. No mention of Obama’s staunch opposition to a neo-conservative war, which helped him get this far in the first place.

Further, note Meacham’s preposterously loaded definition of conservative:

I mean ‘conservative’ in the way most of us have come to use it in recent decades: to describe those who value custom over change, who worry about the erosion of the familiar and the expansion of the state, and who dislike those who appear condescending about matters of faith, patriotism and culture. (In other words, think of figures ranging from Edmund Burke to Thomas Jefferson to David Brooks to Sarah Palin. It is an eclectic crew.)

Well if you put it that way…

He continues along this path by suggesting that since “nearly twice as many people call themselves conservatives as liberals” this is proof of a basic rightward lean. This is curious because he explicitly deals with this premise later, pointing out that “liberal” has become a code word for everything we hate, and that the left has abandoned the effort to recuperate the term. He even quotes Rick Perlstein saying: “Frankly, I don’t care if people call themselves a liberal, a conservative or a ham sandwich if they support progressive positions, which they do.” However, he completely fails to engage this point. Instead, he merrily moves along to more silliness as if he hasn’t just devastated his entire premise.

This is all put into perfect clarity by the question he asks: “So are we a centrist country, or a right-of-center one?” As if those are the only options.

Not that I believe that we are on the verge of a return to the liberal consensus or anything. But the momentum (if such a concept has any meaning) is clearly swing to the left. Certainly, by the standards of some European nations (which Meacham gleefully points out are far further along the spectrum), it is not. But that is not, and should not be, the only standard. A lot may depend on how well the Democratic agenda is constructed, and how successful are its projects, over the next decade.

It’s also interesting to note that the very same issue of Newsweek that this bit of fantasy resides in also contains a piece by Jonathan Alter which completely demolishes Meacham’s premise.

Just think about it this way: if trends continue, there is a chance that Obama will win comfortably, and will be joined in Washington by 57-58 Democratic Senators and a 60-70 vote margin in the House. Those are margins that hearken back to the Great Society and New Deal day. But remember that in those days the Democratic coalition was truly a coalition of Northern liberals and Southern conservatives. It ultimately fell apart because the conditions of the Depression and New Deal which had held it together dissipated.

This time, however, there is no such historical condition. The Democratic Party is not unified by any means, but the divergences are FAR smaller than during LBJ’s tenure.

Power and Glory – Phil Ochs
The Gay Marriage Song – Addie Brownlee

There comes a point when we need to take a long, hard look at what sort of world we want to live in. Do we believe in a future where love is rewarded and honored? A future where two people who want to share their lives together are not forced to contend with a legal system that declares what they feel to be less genuine than other people? A future where young men and women won’t be made to feel ashamed for who they’re attracted to?

Or do we want to be the only modern society besides Nazi Germany to wholesale invalidate the marriages of an entire class of people? Do we want to look back at California 2008 the same way previous generations look back at the segregationist and anti-miscegenation campaigns?

Unfortunately, the folks supporting Prop 8 have raised huge sums of money to fund ads full of lies, designed to scare people away from the simple truths: that gay marriage is a basic, nonintrusive human right which has been legal for a while now in California and Massachusetts, with none of the Chicken Little scenarios coming true. So what you get is saturated airwaves talking about things like “kindergarten students being forced to attend their teacher’s gay marriage” – which is untrue on so many levels that it’s almost impossible to list them all.

I’m not going to mince words here. This is a campaign of hate. It’s being waged because the people behind it are disgusted by gay people and want to hurt them. That’s why the ads are filled with lies – because the goal is to confuse people into thinking that there is a real threat here beyond simple prejudice. Unfortunately, according to the most recent polls, it might very well be working.

So those of us who care about this sort of thing need to recognize the significance of Prop 8. The symbolic importance is tremendous, but it’s also worth noting that California is so large that it accounts for 1/6 of the total US population. Winning the fight here would secure a basic human right for a huge amount of people. Moreover, if we lose here, it’ll slow the tide for the rest of the country to a tremendous degree.

All of which is to say that if you live in California, get out and vote! You can still register to vote (the deadline is tomorrow, October 20) if you haven’t already. If you’ve already registered, make sure your friends have. If they have, make sure they know all the facts. And if they’re still on the fence, ask them if they’d feel comfortable telling a gay friend, co-worker, or neighbor that they voted to invalidate their marriage.

Even if you don’t live in California, there’s plenty you can do. I know there’s a lot of excitement about the presidential campaign, and I’ve given Obama a fair share of cash over the last 18 months. But they are swimming in money right now, and winning the presidency isn’t the only thing that’s important. As of this week, I’ve decided to diversify where my donations are going, and right now my biggest priority is ensuring that we preserve some very basic principles of equality under the law for everyone.

Plus, if you donate before midnight tonight, your contribution will be doubled. And every dollar will go toward letting people know what is truly at stake here.

Ballad of a Lonely Construction Worker – Cuff the Duke

I can’t be the only one who finds this piece from the Wall Street Journal editorial pages to be a telling example of just how far the country has shifted – and how completely unaware of this fact are the intelligentsia of the Right. The premise is that people thinking about ushering in an Obama presidency and a huge Democratic margin in the Senate have no clue what’s in store. The horror, the horror! of an “unchecked left-wing ascendancy.”

After this dire warning, it then it proceeds to list a perfectly reasonable set of center-left policy proposals that, on balance, I would guess have support from a strong majority of Americans. Things like federal guarantees on health insurance that might (might!) eventually transition to a single-payer system. Or how about more regulation of huge multinational industries? Or efforts to slow the decline of unions. Or more taxes on the rich, a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, and broad expansions of voting rights.

There are throwaway lines like “One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration” and “The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress — Democratic, naturally” and “The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules.” To which I say: I certainly wish these were top priorities! And what exactly is supposed to be the problem here? These issues are laid out like they’re foul-smelling carcasses we all understand to be horrible – and they have no need to dwell on it. But for the most part, these are things that a huge percentage of people whole-heartedly support.

And if it’s true that a Democratic sweep will mean that “Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide” I could not be happier. There are few (if any) more indefensible policies than the various restrictions states impose on the right to vote for felons.

In fact, on most of these issues, I wonder who it is they think they are talking to? People aren’t being bamboozled into supporting a guy with a hidden agenda of health care, business regulations, and energy reform. They are planning on voting for him because of those issues.

All in all, it’s actually pretty funny to watch the most extreme anti-socialists adopt the “false consciousness” narrative here: the idea that the masses are being bamboozled into supporting a radical agenda that will do them harm.

Celebration Guns – Stars

Alright, I made it up to Berkeley, got some Zachary’s pizza (first non-vegan food in weeks and OMG was it good), and wanted to point out my favorite post-debate quote of the night. Via First Read, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor: “John McCain put out his big gun, Bill Ayers, and out of the gun popped a big ‘Pow’ sign.”

That’s good stuff right there. Anyways, polling confirms that the mythical “undecided voter” thinks this was a crush for Obama. I’m not sure McCain could have won this debate no matter what the demeanor, but surely his attitude didn’t help.

And I’ve changed my mind on the effect of abortion portion of the debate. In retrospect, this was a stunning victory for Obama not because of anything he did per se, but because of McCain’s utterly dismissive approach to the “health of the mother” exemptions. I had forgotten that while some of the luster has worn off the “maverick” image, there were still quite a few people out there who believed that McCain was, if not pro-choice, at least a closet moderate on this issue. When he spoke that way about this issue, he aligned himself with the farthest of the far right and that sound you heard was women around the country saying “nope, not taking a chance with that one.”

Less than three weeks til election day (although I actually voted today – more details on that coming soon).

Usually if you’re going to liveblog something, you announce it beforehand. But whatever. I’m watching it, and there’s no reason not to include some commentary. So here goes.

Final thoughts – Meh. Too scattershot in the end to really say there’s a “winner” in real terms. McCain needed to do something amazing here and that put him in a bad place. His clear need to stir things up didn’t do much to help on the “erratic” meme with all his interruptions and smirking and aggression. He looked like a guy who was losing and was incredibly frustrated about it. And at times like a petulant child. And I think that general feeling will overwhelm the various particular places where he actually was quite strong.

Probably Obama’s weakest performance, and perhaps McCain’s strongest (in some respects), but I can’t see it being distinct enough from the others that it will change the narrative in a way that helps McCain.

Alright: that was fun. I’m off to Berkeley!

7:30 – Obama’s closing remarks. Both of them talk about the last 8 years. I can’t see how McCain wins that race. People don’t think he’s Bush, but they also think he’s unpleasantly close. Obama’s remarks are a little more policy-oriented, but nothing spectacular. His goal was clearly to just hold serve, maintain the impression that he’s someone the public can trust. I think he succeeded at that, if he didn’t do a lot to broaden his support.

7:28 – McCain’s closing remarks are pretty boilerplate. It’s good, but this is his last chance to establish a theme for the debate. And I don’t think he did anything to recover for all the ways that’s he’s in trouble.

7:26 – And McCain’s final (pre-closing) thoughts are a sarcastic sneer about vouchers. Pretty definitive, huh?

7:23 – Oops. Spoke too soon. McCain snarks it up!

7:22 – The education debate is actually pretty good. Some real differences, some places where both of them have decent ideas. Some places where they both get some shots in. But it’s at least a gesture toward a decent, reasonable discussion without the snark.

7:17 – I wish Obama had been better on abortion. He tried to walk the middle but didn’t do a great job of it. He failed to exercise the pathos of “these people want to treat women like they’re not equal” but also didn’t do enough to neutralize the outrage from the other side. I obviously still think he won the issue because I am appalled by McCain’s idea that people who believe in health exceptions are “extreme.” But Obama could’ve really done some damage here and he didn’t make it happen.

7:16 – McCain again brings up “Obama talks pretty” as if that’s a bad thing. Is there anyone out there who honestly thinks that of the two guys up there, Obama is the one who is avoiding getting into the details of the questions?

7:14 – Voting present. Infanticide. All the muck is showing up now. There’s the old adage “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” and maybe that’s the case here. But I think people have to recognize that this is a desperation ploy by McCain and will notice that he is just raising idiotic points and that Obama is knocking them down with ease. At some point that has to click in a “one of these guys isn’t very interested in the truth” sort of way.

7:11 – Ledbetter! Too bad it’s a little too complicated to really get into the details. Or, too bad that Obama hasn’t made a bigger deal of this so he could quickly reference the issue.

7:09 – I think it’s interesting (and maybe very important) that it’s the Democrat who’s making abortion an explicit issue. Hear hear! Don’t run from this my Blue friends – the public is not in favor of making it impossible for women to exercise their human rights.

7:08 – McCain’s answer is self-contradictory. He says elections have consequences and then pretends that a hypothetical judge exists out there who is “qualified” but has no “political” meaning. Elections have consequences insofar as the president picks people who align politically with them.

7:06 – Litmus test question about Roe. What a stupid way to get at the question. The Supreme Court matters a lot and we’re going to let people get away with saying “no litmus tests” rather than talking about what the Court will look like if they were president.

7:05 – “Senator Government” – at first I thought it was an intentional jab instead of a Freudian slip.

7:02 – In previous years, I’d be worried that Obama is being too academic on this health care discussion. McCain is demagoguing and Obama is trying to respond to reasonable objections. But this year I’m not so sure. People really care about this stuff. I think they’re interested enough to notice that there’s only one guy up there who clearly cares about the issue rather than just trying to score points.

6:59 – And we’ve got Joe the Plumber again.

6:58 – Going back to the “energy” discussion: throwing it all against the wall isn’t just a thematic description of McCain’s approach tonight, it’s what he’s doing in every answer. Energy! Drilling! Chavez! Trade with Colombia! Taxes! One of these surely appeals to you, right?!

6:56 – McCain cites Hoover as an argument against Obama?!?!?! What? He also brings up taxes again, which he’s done about 6 times in completely unrelated responses. I think they’ve decided that winning back the “who will raise taxes” spin is their only chance to win.

6:53 – McCain is smirking again. What is the deal with him on the idea that if you haven’t traveled somewhere you categorically are impossible of understanding it? And Obama comes back with a measured and intelligent response. That’s a win for him.

6:50 – Obama sees a chance to bring up the trade issue. I don’t really like the protectionist strain in the Democratic Party, but Obama’s case here is pretty steady. We need environmental, labor standards, etc. And we can’t just believe that an agreement is “free” because it’s called that.

6:49 – To be fair, Obama adopts the same trope of talking about solar and wind in response to the “oil” problem. But he then mentions biodiesel and (much more importantly) fuel efficiency.

6:47 – “We can eliminate our dependence on foreign oil by building 45 new nuclear power plants.” I’m sorry, but how can I take this guy seriously as a candidate for president when he appears completely unaware of basic energy issues like: what kind of fuel do cars burn?

6:44 – Obama has a nice pivot on “if you care about autism, you’d probably have to spend some more money on it” which avoids him having to say what everyone on the planet knows to be true: that she shouldn’t be allowed within a mile of the Oval Office, much less running the show.

6:42 – Obama’s answer on Biden could be better. A few more pointed references to how much Biden knows about stuff would be more useful than just saying that he agrees with Obama on big issues. That’s one place that McCain might be able to try and spin Palin. Trust me, she’ll just do exactly what I would do. She won’t act like the crazy person you’ve seen.

6:38 – There’s no way McCain can come back at this. There’s no there there on this Ayers stuff. Is he really going to actually try and DEBATE this issue? “All the details need to be known” – but as I have mentioned before, he can’t actually LIST any details.

6:35 – Ayers AND ACORN. 35 minutes in is the winner. I am close to throwing something at the TV. And McCain goes after it by saying he doesn’t care about Ayers. Then why are you bringing him up?!?!

6:33 – What in the world is McCain talking about now? He’s sure not acting presidential, that’s for sure.

6:32 – Maybe I’m biased but this Lewis debate is an absolute crush for Obama, as far as I can tell. McCain is acting like a child.

6:30 – Attack ads on healthcare. What in the world is the problem with that? They are about issues! Obama is spending unprecedented amounts…so now Obama raising TONS more money than McCain is a strike AGAINST him?

6:29 – Obama pivots to “what we really need to be focusing on is the economy.” He could be better on this, but it’s such a powerful message that I think it’ll do alright.

6:27 – This is just awful. Obama has spent more on ALL ads than any other candidate ever. And there’s a serious difference between “negative” ads and “smear” ads. Yet more false equivalencies. And the idea that McCain can sit there and claim to run a truthful campaign is just silly.

6:25 – And McCain opens with this ridiculous “I was forced to do it because he wouldn’t do a bunch of Town Halls.” And then he goes after John Lewis, and tries to make the question about “being nice in the campaign” into a character attack on Obama. Question: what percentage of people even know what remarks McCain is talking about?

6:24 – “Both of you pledged to take the high road.” And here it comes. Blech. Talk about false equivalencies… He even explicitly brings up “say it to his face.”

6:23 – Obama points out that even Fox News agrees with him on this spurious tax cuts claim. Which is alright, but he really ought to be even stronger. And Obama says McCain has shown independence on torture, which is infuriating.

6:20 – McCain is all about the smirking tonight.

6:18 – McCain mentions an “overhead projector” and all the good will he generated with me on ethanol dissipates. It’s science! It’s about teaching kids science! That’s really really important!

6:17 – Check that, McCain AGAIN says “across the board spending cuts.” Is Obama going to point out ALL the stuff he’s already excluded from such cuts. McCain does mention ethanol which is one issue he’s completely right on.

6:16 – “What will you cut? What will you cut? Answer the question! Why won’t anyone answer the question?” You wonder why you keep asking the same stupid question and people won’t answer it. Hmmm….

6:14 – And they continue with this insane neo-Hooverism. Deficits! Deficits! Deficits! Ugh.

6:12 – Wow, I guess the “let’s throw everything at the wall” strategists won in the McCain camp. “class warfare,” “why would you want to raise anyone’s taxes?” he’s smirking and blatantly lying about these things and interrupting, too. To be honest, he reminds me of Bush right now. That can’t play out well for him.

6:10 – And McCain rebuts: taxes, taxes, taxes, Obama would raise your taxes, why does Obama want to raise your taxes, I won’t raise your taxes. I understand why they’re doing this, but they’ve been losing this spin for months. McCain’s premise is “Joe believes Obama will raise his taxes” and Obama responds “then he’s been listening to Senator McCain’s ads – let me tell you what my plan will really do.” Which is why Obama is controlling the spin on this. Moreover, McCain didn’t do anything to explain what this has to do with the financial crisis.

6:07 – Obama takes the question, lists a bunch of his own policies, explains why they’d work AND manages to toss in an attack on McCain’s proposal. If anything, he’s talking too quickly here and including too much information.

6:05 – First question is about their competing plans to deal with the financial crisis. McCain starts by saying that the cause of the crisis was Fannie and Freddie, which is…inaccurate at least, if not outright false. And then he moves onto his plan to buy out a bunch of the mortgages, which they’ve still failed to convince me is even allowed given the package that he voted for.

6:02 – It’s about to start. Countdown until the first Ayers reference? I’m guessing 27 minutes.

I’ve enjoyed The Raveonettes in the past, but it’s always been a casual thing. I obviously love bands who work off the Phil Spector wall of sound template, which The Raveonettes do quite well. But they always seemed just a little bit too keen on making noise. I’m not tremendously enthusiastic about big doses of feedback in any case and I found their motions in that direction to be particularly offputting.

So I picked up Lust Lust Lust way back in May and found it pleasant enough. I wanted no part of the lead single “Aly Walk With Me” which is dreary, repetitive, droning, and suffers from an especially repellant case of the above-noted problem. Still, there were a few nice songs, so I made a note to myself to post about it.

But then the summer posting doldrums hit and it was just never a high priority. So it kept getting shuffled back until almost six months had passed. That happens all the time. I’ve got literally hundreds of bands I have a theoretical intention to post about, but who I will never actually cover. It’s what happens when you run a music blog as a hobby and have a lot of other things to keep you busy. It’s also a de facto form of quality control. Occasionally a fancy-of-the-moment track or two will make it through but for the most part you can be sure that if I’m posting something here it’s because I genuinely love it and listen to it obsessively.

But a funny thing happened with this one. I kept finding myself coming back. More and more of the songs were revealing their secrets to me.

So suddenly I find myself realizing that an album I had quickly dismissed as good but nothing special is likely to be among my favorites of the year. And the more I think about it, the more I think this demonstrates the significanceof song order.

Because, really, there’s only two songs I don’t like: “Aly Walk With Me” and “Lust.” The problem is that they’re among the first three tracks, and so they influenced me perception of the tone for the whole record.

These are dark, dangerous sounding songs. There’s less a “wall of sound” as much as there are these sparsely decorated, almost austere tracks that punctuate themselves by collapsing all the sound in upon you. The result is a strangely claustrophobic feel. In terms of sound textures, it’s fascinating stuff. But as far as the melody goes: it doesn’t appeal to me not in the slightest.

The rest of the album, however, is far more expansive. The sounds are large, they overflow the speakers, the distortion constantly threatens to drown out the words. There are songs that rush past you in a torrent of guitar swells and drum cascades (“Dead Sound,” “Blush,” “I Want The Candy”). There are others that opt for a slower pace, but maintain the same fulsome character (“I Closed My Eyes,” “Black Satin,” “Expelled From Love”). And underneath all of it is a melody that would do The Ronettes proud. The result is a record that scoffs at restraints, that explodes like fireworks, that is gone before you can hardly tell.

I knew that there were plenty of decent songs, but it took months of nudging from my subconscious to alert me to the explosive wonder that is “Blitzed,” or help me to notice just how astonishing it is when the chorus first makes itself known in “Blush,” or to extract the second track “Hallucinations” – an absolute jewel of a song – from in between its two bleak and tedious compatriots.

But it’s all so delicately balanced that I somehow managed to avoid really hearing any of this for months. Those two tracks established a frame of reference that locked in my capacity to respond to the rest of the record.

But the thing is, I think those early tracks are designed to do exactly that. They clearly are meant to establish a tone, to set the stage for the rest. To make it clear that this is the kind of record that hits you with force, to give a backdrop which will prevent the sweetness of the later tracks from going overboard.

It’s just that I’m not actually the target here. All I want is the candy – I don’t want the warning at the beginning to dampen my mood – I just want to let myself drift free in the blissed out waves. I guess it all goes to show that first impressions sometimes let you down. And that sometimes you can love a record in spite of what the artists are actually trying to do with it.

Blitzed – The Raveonettes
Blush – The Raveonettes

Okay, someone help me out here. Surely there’s a way of interpreting this story from yesterday in a way that doesn’t reflect horribly on the McCain campaign. I just can’t figure out what it is.

So a minister serving as a pre-McCain speaker at an event says this:

I also would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god–whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah–that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and election day.”

I won’t even go into the silliness of this – or even point out the weirdness of his invocation of “Hindu” as a god. Suffice to say that the McCain campaign identified this as a problem virtually immediately. But the press release they put out “distancing” themselves from it reads as follows:

While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.

Bear in mind that “religious background of the candidates” was mentioned nowhere in the speech being disavowed. Now, given that, how am I expected to read this as anything other than a statement that “it shouldn’t matter that McCain is a Christian and Obama is a Muslim.” Right? That’s what the statement says, isn’t it?

I’m trying to be charitable but I can’t figure out how to decipher this as anything else. But they can’t possibly be that stupid. So what’s the deal?

Anyways, at a time like this, I think we all could use a little bit of Swedish electro-pop from The Lovekevins. Don’t you agree?

Tamagotchi freestyle (radio edit) – The Lovekevins

2006 was the year for the 60s inspired girl group sound, not to mention for a profusion of awesome twee-pop. It’s a big part of what made it one of my favorite all-time years for music. Sadly, I haven’t found all that much in either genre since then that piqued my interest.

I Want You Back – The School

Fortunately, along comes The School. Think Camera Obscura except, you know, Welsh. They’ve got an EP called Let It Slip that came out a few months back. It’s refreshing, vibrant, a sheer pleasure. Just try and listen to the chorus of “I Want You Back” and not be filled with joy. It can’t be done. It’s a strong candidate for chorus of the year – can you think of one better?

If you’re looking for a little bit of earnest, twee-infused Northern Soul, you’ll definitely want to give The School a listen.