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graphic | same old politics

Josh Marshall reports today that there’s significant buzz around the possibility that Joe Biden sits atop the short list for the VP slot.

Listen, I don’t have THAT much against Biden. I don’t place much stock in the gaffe risk, because I have not seen gaffes make more than a fleeting impact on campaigns. On the contrary, what some would call a gaffe others would call real straight talking (as opposed to McCain’s pseudo-straight-talk), and the Obama campaign could use a shot in the arm in this department.

No, my resistance has to with the fact that SO much of the Obama campaign is built on the concept of change and the “same old Washington politics” put-down of McCain, and yet Biden is a 35-year veteran of the senate. Not much change built into that choice, and it seems to me it’s a pretty important choice.

I can only handle so much cognitive dissonance at one time, and it seems like it would get pounced on by the McCain campaign.

One Response to “Just say no to Biden”

kirk replied on Monday » 18 Aug 2008
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The two rumors I head on the commie lefty radio this morning were:
a) Wes Clark. OK that’s been around forever. General, Southern, Older/Handsome.

but this one made me want to steer the car into oncoming traffic:
b) John Kerry.

If you haven’t read Michael Moore’s piece in Rolling Stone, get cracking.

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ear candy

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Naturally

If anyone's been paying attention, I listen to a wide variety of music, only a fraction of which I've reviewed here at Transcendental Floss. I tend to go through phases when I'll be stuck on a particular artist or genre, really immersing in it for a few weeks at a time, and what I find so interesting and exciting is that during each phase I have this experience where I feel like there's no better music than what I'm listening to right then and there. Well, I've just discovered Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and I can say with complete confidence that this is the best music I have ever heard. Seriously, this is magical stuff. Brooklyn, New York's Daptones Records have managed to produce record after record of fine R&B/soul/funk music using vintage musical equipment and analog recording techniques in the ultimate homage to the legendary Motown and Stax catalogs. The Dap-Kings, serving as the Daptone house band, are the modern day equivalent of Stax's Booker T & The MGs, laying down the tastiest grooves, sweetest guitar riffs, and of course the horns that make this music so electrifying. Sharon Jones is the quintessential soul singer, able to capture moments of tenderness just as easily as moments of gritty passion. Enjoy!

— Gonzo

Van Morrison - His Band & The Street Choir

As much as I love the 1991 movie The Commitments, Van Morrison, some 40 years earlier, had already proven that the Irish have plenty of soul. Perhaps my favorite album of his, His Band & The Street Choir could easily be said to share some DNA with the music of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings (soulful crooning, grooves, horns, etc.), yet with a decidedly unique twist that is all Van The Man. This music simply makes me feel good on a deep, deep level. What's so great about Van Morrison is that he's covered such a variety of genres, from soul to blues to country to jazz to celtic to a kind of meditative, almost new age sound that is all his own, and so as I move from phase to phase of musical immersion he's very often right there with me.

— Gonzo

eye candy

Be Kind Rewind

I was not prepared to love this movie nearly as much as I did. While I've liked a lot of Jack Black's work, he's a guy with limited range who I can easily see wearing out his schtick. However, teamed with a very sweet and funny turn by Mos Def, an equally sweet Danny Glover, and under the direction of the mad genius of Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep), Black's occasionally formulaic performance does nothing to keep this film from achieving success as a comedy and a bittersweet slice of life in Passaic, New Jersey. I was surprised over and over again how Gondry unapologetically went sentimental, eschewing so much of the cynicism that passes as gritty realism these days, which is music to my unapoligetically sentimental ears. I laughed. I cried. I learned that Mos Def is by far the best artist to crossover from music to acting that I've seen in a long, long time.

— Gonzo

brain candy

Franny & Zooey - J.D. Salinger

I work at a university where I supervise a team of student employees. One employee, in painfully embarrassing hindsight, reminds me an awful lot of me, but before this hindsight came into focus he was a big, fat pain in my ass. Relentlessly sarcastic and arrogant, yet brilliant, this guy pushed my patience to the limit. Then, one day, I saw him sitting under a tree on campus reading Franny & Zooey and it hit me like a lightning bolt. I know this kid. I WAS this kid. So, I stopped to talk to him about the book and about Salinger in general. He'd read The Catcher in the Rye first, then moved on to Nine Stories, which, with the story A Perfect Day For Bananafish, introduces the reader to the inimitable Glass family. Franny & Zooey, then, becomes the natural next choice, with Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenter & Seymour: An Introduction to follow, and this was exactly the same sequence that I followed 20+ years earlier. Ever since, while we're not buddy-buddy, there's been a new-found understanding between us, a sense that I'd been his shoes, that we shared some interests. Oh, and I went back and re-read Catcher, Nine Stories, and am currently falling in love all over again with Franny & Zooey.

— Gonzo

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Monday 18 August 2008

Just say no to Biden

One Response to “Just say no to Biden”

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