The Faint – Agenda Suicide

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What I noticed caught me a bit off-guard. There was a story on the threat of terrorism, which started off with a historical gloss of Al Qaeda activity from the 1990′s to the present. While there were the obligatory-and-expected digs at Clinton’s supposed passivity, these digs were evenly spread when it came to GW’s first nine months in office. And still more surprising to me was the prominence that Fox not only gave to Obama’s prescient speech in 2002 about not getting bogged down in a dumb war, but also the readiness to take on McCain/Palin’s attacks on Obama’s wanting to read Miranda rights to terror suspects–in a truly fair-and-balanced approach, Fox showed that Obama’s views were otherwise.

All the while, the scroll bars (there are literally 4 different scroll bars now) were scrolling things like, Hillary seeking to mobilize women voters, Karl Rove saying that McCain’s ads are going too far (when the pot calls you black, you must’ve really gone far), and Greenspan criticizing McCain’s purported middle-class tax relief. In short, Fox was showing info-bites that one might find on the Huffington Post.

Now it’s old news that Rupert has been trying to cozy up to Obama, but was I witnessing something larger trickling down here? Surely just a few minutes is not scientific, but more evidence is surfacing that my experience was not a mere aberration.

Maybe I’m clueless and don’t recognize that there was simply enough red meat thrown by showing the word “Hillary” or by showing that Obama opposed the Iraq invasion like all the other anti-Americans, but if I am right that Fox is leaning more in his direction, what does this mean? Do the powerful simply recognize that an Obama presidency is inevitable? Or perhaps are they truly frightened that McCain might die, leaving my wacky Aunt Sarah in charge?

Or maybe more cynically they realize that with two unwinnable wars and a shit-tanking economy that there are no easy answers to fixing the Bush legacy, that the next president is doomed to a one-term clusterfuck of catastrophes, and they’re taking the bearish approach that the clusterfuck could have long-term residual impact on that president’s political party?

Hilarity ensues at garfield minus garfield

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Primarily because my friends are not a pack of fucking douchebags.

You get the sense that Thoreau at least would do his own dishes.

Esmeralda County schools has prohibited students from speaking Spanish on the school bus.

I think the Royals have a good shot in 2010, when the Tigers lose Cabrera and every one of the Royals’ key players is still under contract.

Typical [exorcism] cases … include people who turn away from the church and embrace New Age therapies, alternative religions or the occult. Internet addicts and yoga devotees are also at risk.

“I am just a visual person… About six months ago, I was wearing some weird get-up, and I suddenly thought to myself, ‘There’s a world of difference between dressing for men and dressing for women. I’ll do it commes des garcons for a while.’ It made me even more fashion-y, but also more subtle… an infamous story about the secret to my appeal: I purposely dress like I could get undressed in five seconds… No buttons, no zippers, no pants, etc.”

I’ve relaxed the rules since then but it’s still amusing to recall because the other day I came across some “Action Not Glamour” shoelaces that I adored but, with the exception of a pair of boots I seldom wear because the heels are agony, don’t own any shoes with laces.

The semantics of clothing as a visual language have long fascinated me, as no reference goes uncoded, from uniforms to couture. I am especially reminded of attending the PEN/Faulkner Gala a few years ago and chatting over dinner with famed linguist Deborah Tannen, who pointed out that men and women’s choices for formal wear are jarring in terms of what is permissible and what is scrutinized. We’re always saying something. What’s your take on what you wear?

I suppose I say: “I get dressed in 5 seconds”.

¹ fashionista not recognized by Firefox’s handy-dandy spell checker.

AVC: The characters that populate The Stage Names use the vocabulary of pop songs and movies to talk about their lives. Is that something you do as well?

WS: Absolutely. It’s a really common trap to want your life to live up to some standard that you believe in, and then you start to really examine those standards and realize they come not from experiences you’ve had, but things you’ve seen in movies, or feelings you’ve felt listening to pop songs, or ideas you’ve received from reading books. And not just happy things, but a lot of the time, sad things. It gets kind of depressing, when you see how movies and songs make these promises to us. If I was being flippant, I would say that a big theme of the record is trying to show that for the bullshit that it is.

• Okkervil River on Conan August 28th
• Okkervil River in San Francisco September 5th

* but there is.

Other fun facts from the OWH article:

• Benson’s racial makeup in 2006-07 is about 46 percent black, about 41 percent white, about 10 percent Latino and less than 2 percent each Asian American and American Indian.
• Throughout the process….the students wanted to make sure they weren’t raising controversy for the sake of raising controversy. They checked out books from the W. Dale Clark Library and consulted Web sites to research the history of the word.

Damn those students for researching, analyzing and reporting topics that are of interest to it’s racially diverse student body. Better to stick to more age-appropriate activities like…..Military Science.

full disclosure: I was once a member of a high school newspaper staff, so my allegiance may lie/lay?? with the students.