Archive for October, 2009
 Results: Wow – two very close match-ups in a row. Bowie jumped out to an early lead, only to see Janis Joplin close hard. In the end, though, the top seeds make it five in a row. The numbers: #3 David Bowie 48%; #8 Janis Joplin 45%; Creedence Clearwater Revival 7%.
Up next, our search for the greatest band of all time moves out to the Fillmore region, where the groundbreaking band that more or less invented atmosphere hosts a pod that looks like a mismatch on paper. But as they say, they don’t play ‘em on paper. Full story »
 As a lifelong comic book reader, I was curious to stumble across Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics at the bookstore one day. That was perhaps a year ago, but I never got around to reading it. Written as a comic book itself, I figured it wouldn’t take me too long to plow through it once I finally picked it up.
Well, confined to bed for a few days, trying to avoid anything that would tax my foggy and phlegm-filled head, I decided to tackle McCloud’s book.
Bad choice and good choice.
Bad choice because it looked deceptively light, but in fact, the book is a pretty heavy-duty, sophisticated look at comic book theory. Yeah, that’s right: “comic book theory.” Full story »
Nick Griffin, the leader of the tiny British National Party, has a very low profile outside the UK. Their best political showing has been to pick up two seats in the European Parliament, when they polled 6% of the UK vote in that election in June 2009.
They are a minority party and are unlikely to ever lead political thought in the UK, let alone Europe.
Griffin has never appeared on public television to either promote or defend his party. The BBC, acknowledging that he now represents a small, but distinct, subset of the British population, invited him onto their long-running political panel discussion show, Question Time.
Outside, angry demonstrators gathered to protest Griffin’s arrival. Hundreds of police battled hundreds of protestors. 25 broke through a barrier and managed to make it inside the BBC buildings before being dragged back outside. By the end of the evening, three policemen had been injured and six protestors arrested.
What gives? Full story »
It’s been nearly ten years since a radioactive spider crept into the offices of Marvel Comics and bit everyone. Or maybe it was the burst of a gamma bomb. Or a shower of cosmic rays.
Marvel Comics EIC Joe Quesada
(photo courtesy Marvel Comics) At the time, puny Marvel was trying to steady its wobbly legs after a rough period of bankruptcy in the late nineties. Then, suddenly, the company found itself endowed with fantastic new super powers: It could seemingly make money at will.
Impressed by Marvel’s astonishing turnaround over the last ten years, Disney announced a month and a half ago that it was snatching up the comic book company for $4 billion.
But the secret origin of Marvel’s amazing success isn’t such a secret, says Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada.
In fact, it’s written on every page. Full story »
 Results: Finally, a bit of drama. And controversy. Followed by a two-day intermission. Sorry about that, RockHeads. In a match that produced lots of comment and way too little respect for some great artists, The Police surge late to nip Billy Joel at the wire. The numbers: #4 The Police 48%; Billy Joel 46%; #5 Graham Parker 6%. The Police move on to the Sweet 16. (Quick trivia – five bonus points to the first person who can tell us where they got their name.)
Up next, our search for the greatest band of all time riffs over to the Budokan region and the artist of a thousand faces who fell to Earth. Is another upset in the offing or will the top seeds continue their recent run of success? Full story »
The Obama administration threw a bone to the lunatic, fringe left a few days ago. The memo to federal prosecutors in medical marijuana states has garnered hearty applause from Greenwald and the Marijuana Policy Project.
When elected, Obama said that federal raids on state-law legal marijuana cultivation and distribution would end. The didn’t, not by a long shot, and the reasoning was that the feds would continue to prosecute people who violated state and federal laws. That boils down to everyone, no matter their standing under state law. The latest memo simply tells prosecutors that it’s not a good use of their time to bring charges against those abiding by their State’s law.
Full story »
♫♪ If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed Full story »
You may have noticed a preponderance of error messages (and corresponding lack of cool ArtsWeek posts) over the past couple of days. Short version: significant technical problems. Massive thanks to Brian Angliss, who in addition to being our star enviro reporter is also our site’s technical director.
I don’t know enough to adequately explain the problem, but it seems to be a case of needing more server than we have. The perils of success, I suppose. Sadly, this stuff ain’t free (we’re all volunteers here and our monthly ad revenue doesn’t always cover our costs).
So coming soon, we’ll be begging asking our faithful readers to join us in our first panhandling fund drive. Details to follow. In the meantime, we sincerely apologize for the outage, and will do all we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Thanks for bearing with us.
Remember the pictures we shared during the DNC last year? Were you wondering what happened to photography contributor Jack Shaftoe? Well, I’m back.
This set is an introduction to some of my studio work. “Jack” was my political persona but as MentalSwitch I’ve been shooting fine art since 2000 and have been published in the USA, Canada and in Europe. Through my art I explore social taboos and preconceptions (and occasionally just shoot a given picture for the hell of it).
As you view these pictures just remember that members of alternative subcultures are people, too, and are oftentimes very active in social and political change movements.
 Full story »
My latest for Raw Story:
Figure in Bush propaganda operation remains Pentagon spokesman
A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration’s military analyst program — aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people — operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department’s press and community relations offices.
Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations — propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.
READ THE REST…
On the same day that The New York Times said (buried in its Media Decoder blog) that it would cut 100 newsroom jobs (again), Columbia University said it would not accept applications next year for its dual-degree graduate program in environmental journalism. The former is no surprise; the latter is a sad sign of the impact of newsroom job cuts on what news gets reported — or not.
In a letter to faculty, the directors of the program wrote:
As you know, media organizations across the county are in dire financial straits and thousands of journalists’ jobs have been eliminated. Science and environment beats have been particularly vulnerable. Although our graduates have done well in their careers, even those still employed are finding few opportunities to do the kind of substantive reporting for which the dual degree program has trained them, as they scramble to do their own work plus that of laid-off colleagues. [emphasis added]
The ability of newspapers to report credibly and capably on news other than sports, entertainment, business and politics has been severely undercut by the loss of several thousand journalists over the past three years. In the case of environmental issues, such as climate change, the loss is incalculable.
Full story »
 Results: The past week provided ToR fans with about as much drama as the 4th quarter of the Patriots/Titans game, huh? In our most recent match the band currently famous for providing CSI theme music simply poleaxed some pretty good competition, making it four in a row for the favorites. The numbers: #3 The Who 82%; #9 AC/DC 16%; Queensryche 2%.
Maybe we can give voters something to think about this week. Let’s start in the Budokan region, where perhaps the greatest band of the New Wave hosts the Piano Man and arguably the most underappreciated artist in rock history. Full story »
 The Tate Museum has the finest collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner in the world, and from time to time they feel the need to refresh the public with another show to keep proving that Turner deserves the “greatest British artist ever” tag. Back in 2005 this resulted in a hugely interesting show called Turner, Whistler, Monet, which looked at the interactions between the three, and it was a genuine treat. This time around it’s Turner and the Masters, a look at the painters that influenced Turner. At least that’s the intention. And everyone loves it. Well, not quite everyone—only Brian Sewellseems to give it the critical eye it deserves. The Times calls it a “Magnificent and hugely ambitious exhibition.” It’s quoted right there on the Tate website. What it turns into, however, is something completely different, something along the lines of Turner the Competitive Cockney Gnome who Tried to Outdo Everyone without Ever Having an Original Idea.
Full story »
The summer I turned 16, I decided to reinvent myself. I was going to be a baseball player. My girlfriend thought that was a great idea, even though I would have to practice on the other side of town for four nights a week, then play for two nights. So, with her encouragement, I committed myself to baseball.
Now, any normal person could glance at me and see that I was a guy destined to play football. I looked like a football player, talked like one, and ran into things with a violence that suggested a natural linebacker. But I didn’t like football that much. Truth be told, I was just clumsy and always late. Hitting other people was OK, but getting hit by other people hurt. A lot. I was too cerebral for football, so I went to the Babe Ruth Baseball League tryouts for boys aged 13-16, and was drafted by the Elks Lodge, Post 1776. Full story »
Imagine you’re cancelled puppet-driven Fox comedy series “Greg the Bunny.” You’re unemployed, naturally, and rather depressed. You show up at a bar and chat up “Sesame Street.”
The two of you get nice and sauced, stagger towards the subway and eventually make it back to Sesame’s $4.5 million penthouse, where you proceed to wildly bump unprotected uglies and find out the other’s dirty secret: That you both cry during sex.
Warning for those with heart conditions, delicate eardrums towards 2:00. Full story »
 You know how every once in awhile somebody will plow a car into a crowd of people? I think I now understand why.
Every Sunday morning we go to brunch in Denver. There are lots of great spots and we sort of rotate between them. Today we were going to see if we could get into the new Snooze location at Colorado & 7th. We’ve tried a couple of times before, but with no luck. See, the way Sunday brunch works most places in Denver is that things don’t start to pack up until 9:30 or 10:00. If you’re there before then the wait won’t be too bad.
Except for Snooze. Full story »
 Progress. Different people have different ideas of what we should be progressing towards, but there’s a general consensus that we can progress, even if one’s idea of progress looks like regression to others. The idea of progress requires that time take the form of a ray, beginning at some point and moving in a single direction. There’s support for the idea in many interpretations of evolution: organisms evolve complexity across time, and complexity is considered higher than simplicity. Political science certainly supports the idea, as the discipline would be pointless without it. But the foundation of the idea rests on the Abrahamic faiths, with their ideal of a true god of justice, chosen people and the eventual conquest of evil by the forces of good. If you were raised in “the West”, then the philosophical ideal is deeply ingrained in your thinking…even if you were raised without religion. This ideal has driven history, the interpretation of history and continues to drive the events becoming history. But is it shared across humanity?
Full story »
I’ve never seen the aurora borealis – but that’s what I imagined when I saw these reflections.
Enjoy your weekend evenings!
|
