Curious how we got to this economic point? Tired of every pundit on TV screaming and 'explaining' that the sky is falling without really giving you a real, in-depth explanation of how we as Americans just got bent over?
Then I urge everybody to listen to this amazing show from This American Life. Listen to it while you surf the net or put it on the mp3 player and give it a listen on your way to work.
But beyond all else, listen to the last 7 minutes or so. Where we find out about something called 'stock infusion' and how that might be the best possible way out of this mess, and how Secretary Paulson is unlikely to do anything of the sort.
If you find this information helpful, please pass it along to people you know.
And if you think "There's got to be a better way out of this mess" then I urge you to drop your congressperson and senator a note, telling them what you think.
Every time I turn it on, I feel my blood pressure escalate. It isn't that the people speaking have different ideas than me- that I can deal with. In fact, there are occasional ideas I agree with. Its the system of spouting baseless opinion, sometimes straight out lies, as if they are facts. If Tom DeLay says Obama is a Marxist, well then, that's all the proof that's required, it must be true! Its a wonder my ears haven't blown off my head yet listening to this crap.
It started out of innocent curiosity. I think it is important to be well informed, and sometimes folks come up with notions so preposterous that my shock doesn't evaporate in time to respond quickly. Occasionally I wonder if there is news that I’m missing exposing myself to purely self selected media sources. I had the notion that if I was familiar with the ideas circulating, I could do my own research as necessary to get informed, develop opinions, and shorten my response time. The problem is that no facts are presented. And how does one counter straight out lies, when people believe them? Ideas come crawling out of the muck and are perpetuated until they bleed over into mainstream media. They gain the validity of ideas that are born out of fact, and are treated with the same measure of possibility.
Eventually the pressure builds until I need to turn off the radio, turn on some good rock music, and let guitars and growly bass worm their way into my stomach and replace the rage there with something more easily dissipated.
We've had a little Scroobius Pip love here before. I wanted to pop you over to an interview that was on the radio this evening. Interesting to finally learn the meaning behind "Thou Shalt Always Kill," as well as confirmation that Simon Cowell is an idiot.
when your tracklisting includes: public enemy, the prodigy, n-joi, justice, michael jackson, daft punk, queens of the stone age, groove armada, size 9, eric b and rakim, hot chip, primal scream, lil louis, leftfield and slam — you're doing something right.
(oh and bonus time — if you dig 90s electronic, check out audio.out. right now, he has re-posted 6 months worth of tracks — tasty treats if you dig english electronic music. (think leftfield, orbital, orb, pwei, red snapper, altern-8 and a bunch more.)
it's fair to ask if you were, at the time, wearing a sweater.
also, im not a huge fan, but i figured it showed how eclectic the mix is. which is a slight misnomer, as having listened to it, its less of a 'dirtchamber' / 'radio soulwax' mix and closer to a consistent mix. which isn't bad.
anyway.
go wear your sweater. or let's find you more exciting music.
…and apparently it's no longer available for download. =( that Or I'm doing something wrong. Pity, as I was looking forward to the Groove Armada. (Cue ray shakin' it to his internal mental playlist… "I see you, baby, shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass…")
first, go download this track called "Nel Cimitero Di Tucson" at stereogum. it's the song sampled by gnarls on crazy and it's from a 60s italian spaghetti western. as you listen, you can taste the dust in the air and furrow your brow in the glare of the pitiless sun. enjoy.
so i'm back. been back for a while but waiting to post until i'd processed all the images from yosemite. well that hasn't happened yet, so here's a stopgap, a section of journal written at the end of the second day. i will flickr most of the photos and link them in the future. until then…
some thoughts about the trip so far…
sleep deprivation kept me on the verge of falling asleep during the entire ~4 hour drive to yosemite. reid talks and drives too fast. i wonder if i ever fell asleep completely. once he thought i had drifted off and he just stopped talking mid-sentence. guess my sunglasses and stillness had him fooled. i really forced myself to stay awake, although i should have just told him i needed to crash for a couple hours.
had a headache that morning around 7am. i'm guessing no sleep + caffeine, nicotine and alcohol suplexed my brain. there was a point when the sun was just starting to rise at which the center of my vision dropped out, as if my blindspot had grown to the size of a golfball hovering 6 inches in front of my skull. constant fixed vision focused on a screen 18 inches from my face can't possibly be healthy.
reid bent my usb stick when he flipped over the laptop it was plugged into. he immediately apologized and offered to replace it if it was broken. of course i assured him that it would be fine, like i always do, even though i was annoyed. it still works and i bent it back to fairly straight. later at night i showed him my ds lite and let him play it not realizing that his hands were grubby from chasing after a mouse in the fireplace. sigh. more annoyance. but i suppose the pristine white finish wasn't going to last long anyway.
i'm actually starting to appreciate reid a lot more. we had dinner at a pizza place up the road. a pitcher of beer later and our conversation felt a lot less forced. i respect his ambition and his work ethic.
the place we're staying in is called the "hunter's house". it's about 30 minutes outside of the valley on the merced river. just down the road from the yosemite view lodge where we stayed last time. the house is huge. at the top of a hill and overlooking the river. the back yard descends into a valley with another fork of the river. i'll take a few pictures tomorrow.
jo and ben arrived late tonight. this is the first time i've met them in person. good first impression. should be fun to work with them.
And this is how I find out? On here?
I live with you, I spend hours and hours with you every day and this is how I find out you're going behind my back?
And this is how I confront you? Through blog posts?
I hate the 21st century.