A brand new year!

And stuff!

We're back.  Again.  With a vengeance.  More vengeance than usual.  The long-lasting kind.

Okay, first, courtesy of Oliver Willis, check this heroic story.

Second, our dream come true:  

Finally, I'm going to put 2000 miles on my bike(s) this year and read 50 books. Eat it.

Onward and Upward

In honor of the new Bush-free era and the renaissance of VP3, I give you two inspiring anthems starring Dave Grohl of Nirvana/Foo Fighters.

Tiny Dancer

Leather and Lace

Black and non-black

I've been saying for a while that this expanded re-definition of white is Latinos' likely future. We've seen this white assimilation in the past with Irish, Italians, and Jews. Now Latinos and Asians may well be subsumed into our cultural definition of white. The glaring exception of this white assimilation is, of course, African-Americans. The systemic racial categories remain black and non-black, basically.

I guess our hope can be with more and more "mutts" like Obama and me, the categories become more and more fluid, less easily defined. I'm not necessarily optimistic, but then again, I wasn't optimistic five years ago that we'd see a black President anytime soon.

I Read

So in addition to starting up blogging again, I'm also reading.  And by "reading," I'm referring to articles, not books--I have to wean myself back into it.  That weaning process made me start with a political read, as I'm already going through campaign withdrawals.  I spent many, many minutes reading Newsweek's laborious behind-the-scenes seven-part series on the 2008 campaign.  If that description sounds interesting, you'll like it.  If it doesn't, don't bother.

The next article should be read by each of you.  Since I'm undercultured, I've never really read David Foster Wallace.  At some point I'll get to his fiction, but I highly recommend reading his account of a luxury cruise excursion that he penned for Harper's.  It at first solidified my determination to never go on such a cruise but then made me second-guess because it could all be worth it just for the sheer experience of the thing but then I reconsidered because actually living it would most likely pale in comparison to Wallace's utterly brilliant take.  So, yeah, it's worth a read.

Change

I am so very glad that we won.

On Lance (no last name needed)

Still don't know what to think about Lance's comeback, but I'm sure it will be entertaining.  For one good example, it brings borderline psychopaths like Simeoni out and then fun articles are written about their "rivalry."

Don't Cry for Stewart & Colbert

There's been some chatter about the dark and stormy future of Comedy Central's nightly political two-fer.  Count me among those predicting The Daily Show and The Colbert Report will be just fine.  The genius of the shows is that they are not dependent on one person or one administration for their content--there's stupidity and incompetence all around us.  And, of course, one of the primary targets is the media, whose idiocy is not going away.

Linky Linky

Well, since my last post generated so much discussion, I thought I'd switch it up a bit and get back to my old ways of posting: More links! Less substance!

This copyeditor-related podcast is humorous in a slightly scary way (although it could be a fake, so fair warning).

So there's this nut Duncan Hunter (R-Ca.) who's running for President. (Funny already, right?) I saw one of his ads here in Iowa and the gist of it was he was going to hunt down dem Mexicans himself. Or something. Anyway, he's got this PAC called "Peace Through Strength," which I was going to mock for being Orwellian, but apparently that phrase is unironically attributed to He Whose Name Must Not Be Mentioned But Is Unfathomably Worshiped. So, not much to say there. The rest of the GOP pres-wannabes are lining up to showcase their authoritarian bona fides, John McCain by putting up a fascist chic website and Rudy Giuliani by, well, being himself.

At least a few people are standing up to He Whose Name Must Not Blah Blah Blah.

To understand the future we must look to the past.

Al Franken is framing his Senate race pretty well up north.

Check out this site for some moving photojournalism. (Note the 1st place Portrait photo.)

Count me all-in for this movement. Please, nytimes.com, please. Do it for the kids.

This seems somehow wrong.

It is a moral outrage that we still don't have universal health coverage in this country. I mean, politics is all well and good and interesting for some of us, but the policy implications of right-wingers when it comes to health care are insanely destructive to millions of people. Seriously, if I believed in hell, I'd want them to go rot in it (...uh, the right-wingers, not the people without health care).

Speaking of, like, right-wingers and hell and such, here's a Lenten-themed quote to ponder.

Bad news here. I wonder what counts as "addiction"....

Courtesy of my favorite blogger (a lefty-peacey progressive who is a fan of indie music and the NBA), we have some breaking news: the Bush administration's diplomacy sucks.

OK. That felt good. More later.

It's Sabbath.* Let's get Adventisty.

Well, it's good to see that some former contributors are currently contributing to the internets, though sharing their wisdom elsewhere. Or maybe just engaging in shameless self-promotion.

Anyway, I was reading this article over at Spectrum's site and I thought I'd throw out a discussion topic for our reader (yes, singular). James Coffin cited a pretty fascinating interview with Des Ford's son Luke that I had actually already read. The part he globbed onto was Ford's comment about the necessity of believing your religion/denomination is "chosen" or "special" if it is to continue on. Coffin took this and wrote about some possibly meaningful distinctions between "liberals" and "conservatives" in the Adventist church and the implications for our kids' futures. Or something.

I've spent seconds--maybe full minutes--thinking over this a bit myself, though from a slightly different perspective. There are a lot of things from my strong Adventist upbringing that I appreciate and honor and am thankful I experienced (camp meetings, vespers, Sabbath school, potlucks...). There are quite a few other things that I really don't plan on exposing my kids to (scary stories about the time of trouble, anti-Catholic bigotry, inbred schooling...). But I don't know that how easy it is to pass on the good parts of Adventist (or Christian) culture and avoid the unwanted others. I mean, if my kids don't go to Adventist schools (and I doubt they will), how culturally Adventist could they get? I feel like there is a certain amount of certainty/fundamentalism/whatever needed to inculcate the values/culture that I want and I don't know that my freewheeling liberal attitudes provide a context where an appropriate appreciation for Christianity--especially of the cultural/collective sort--can prosper. Not that this is super pressing since I'm not dealing with parental concerns yet and don't plan to be anytime soon (ahem, Wheat Thin). Anyway, this is my first real post back in the saddle, so it doesn't have to have a point, just an invitation for other(s?) to comment.

*It was Sabbath when I started this post. So there. Not to say that it took me this long to come up with a few blathering sentences, but I get distracted easily....

Packed my bag last night, preflight...

Phew, that was close.

N-Dawgg remains without internet due to the massive failure of his hypercoil super accelerator. In the meantime, I would like to keep all of our readers content with some words from the Immortal William Shatner:

Is this thing on?

Yes, the rumors are true. We is back.

And we've got technology.

Best SOTU Response:



Best Republican of the Moment:



Oooo, don't it feel good?

The Rebirth of Cool

Veggie Potluck will rise again. Coming soon...

R.I.P. - Veggie Potluck

July 30, 2003 to December 14, 2005
Devoted Friend
Constant Teacher
Loved to Argue
Killed by Baseball

Gone, but not Forgotten

F*#&%&*#*$=

I realize that nobody will believe me when I say this (I barely believe myself), but I had penned a decently well-formed riposte to wheat thin's love letter to baseball yesterday when Firefox locked up on me (which it has been doing with some regularity since I downloaded 1.5). So, no dice on that--I've exerted all my energy and now all I can share are these three sweet little gems from Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendencies:

Movies That Won't Be Shown on the Lifetime Network
&
Things Not Overheard at a Conceptual-Art Gallery Opening
&
State Songs If They All Suggested the Apathy of Idaho's "Here We Have Idaho."

(More enjoyable lists here.)