Thanks to Dean Ericksen of Almost There In No Time (ATINT) for sending this clip along to All This Is That (ATIT).
White House Press Secretary Spins Wife's Tragic Death As A Positive
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Saturday, March 22, 2008
Video: The "come and get it" demo by The Beatles
Paul Macca gave this song to Badfinger after The Beatles had signed Badfinger to Apple records. They needed a single--a radio-worthy song. The Beatles did this demo of the tune. You wonder how it would have turned out had they actually gone into full production on the tune. As it is, Badfinger performed a totally respectable version, and most casual fans don't even know it was a song intended for and written by The Beatles.
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Friday, March 21, 2008
Obama's Speech: Moral equivalence and white guilt
...click Obama to enlarge...
There is a fascinating editorial in today's Washington Post: "The Speech: A Brilliant Fraud." "His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt. " Charles Krauthammer makes a pretty interesting case for Barack Obama being just another politician of expediency.
I felt like it was a great speech. But was my white guilt merely played like a Stradivarius? A great speech may not be noble, but accomplishes what it set out to do. The polls seem to indicate Obama got a bump from the speech in certain sectors, while he lost ground with the independents. I don't think we'll know for a while because it's not over yet.
Was this the first sign of the cynical, manipulative politician that had to emerge sooner or later? And how will all the new young and African-American voters view that? Does Obama, as a singularly historic figure, get to play by a different set of rules?
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Boston Dynamics' Spooky Gas-powered, Concrete Robot, Big Dog...
It's loud, it looks like a gigantic insect scrambling over the hill, and it lives! This is by far the spookiest thing I've seen this year. "Big Dog" is a robot that can carry 350 pounds, walk through brush, bombed out buildings, and even on ice. This was created by Boston Dynamics on a grant from "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency." We're so screwed!
Earlier this year I read How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion by Daniel H. Wilson. . .Wilson drops robotics history trivia nuggets and descriptions of current robot research into this scary and funny guide to surviving the inevitable robot apocalypse. And seeing Big Dog, it feels like we're just a little bit closer to that Robot-Homo Sapien meet-up.
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Timothy! The best song ever about cannibalism
On a side note, I saw The Buoys 35 years ago at The Satstop River Rock Festival. Also on the bill: Delaney and Bonnie (with the now bandless Eric Clapton), The Youngbloods, Wishbone Ash, Albert Collins, Eric Burdon, Jimmy Witherspoon. All I remember about the Buoys' performance is the notorious Timothy, and an incredible cover of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.
I was just trying to look up information about the Satsop Festival...and an article on All This Is That is the first hit...when I am looking for real information this is not where I'd start the search for anything!
This infamous 1971 song is about two trapped miners who eat a third one. It is still remembered and written about in rock histories. Here is the song, with atypical You Tube photo montage.
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Happy 1,437th Birthday to the Prophet Muhammad!
Abu l-Qasim Muhammad, Mohammed, Muhammed, Mahomet, whatever you want to call Him, celebrates his 1,437th birthday today.
He is considered by Muslims to be the final messenger and prophet of God a/k/a الله Allāh. Muslims consider him the restorer of the uncorrupted faith ( a/k/a islām) of Adam, Abraham and others. He is the last (and they say greatest) in a line of prophets of Islam. Most of what we know about him comes straight from the Qur'an (a/k/a Koran),
He seems to be a pretty cool guy like Jesus, or Buddha, and like Jesus and Buddha, he took the heat for a lot of zealous followers who went overboard and took it to the extreme.
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Photo: Vicki Lenti on the Staten Island Ferry with Our Lady Of The Harbor A/K/A The Statue Of Liberty In The Distance
Click Victoria Lenti to enlarge
One thing we often did when we lived in New York City was hop on the Staten Island Ferry and go back and forth across the harbor to the forgotten borough. The ferry was especially great on those 95 degree 99% humidity days. In 1979, when this picture was taken [I think], the Staten Island Ferry still cost ten cents, and for that dime, you could ride back and forth all day long.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Spitzer's replacement David Paterson admits hot affair and MILF Michelle 'fesses up to being rodgered outside the connubial confines of marriage
By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor
03-18-2008 12:00 AM PDTThe very same day he took over for horndog Elliott Spitzer, New York Governor David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife have had extramarital affairs. Both Paterson, 53, and his tasty wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in an interview they each had intimate relationships with others several years ago.
Paterson said he had a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side hotel, Paterson said, "From time to time I used to take Michelle to that hotel."
The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about their—what was once called open—marriage after an outbreak of rumors about Paterson's personal life began circulating among the press corps in the last week.
No one can really get up in arms about The Governor sneaking around, or the wronged wife this time. He maintains some sort of cred despite the affair. . .because he was getting it for free, and she was working her own angle. In a curious side-note, Paterson is legally blind, which seems not to preclude an eye for the ladies.
What's the deal these last few years with statehouse sex scandals in New York and New Jersey? It's King Midas In Reverse all over again.
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The Dusty 45's perform at Chop Suey in Seattle
I saw the Dusty 45's again last night at King Cobra, a new (and fantastic) rock club in Seattle. Why these guys didn't explode nationally is a mystery to me. They're skilled, their music is infectious, and they're masters of fusing rock with alt country, rockabilly, pop, and good old fashioned western swing. With a touch of surf music ala The Ventures (other local heroes) and a little bit of that wacky mariachi trumpet. Here is a YouTube vid of their performance at Chop Suey.
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Saturday, March 15, 2008
The ides of March: It was 2,052 years ago today that Caesar was assassinated
click to enlarge the scene on the Ides of March
2,052 years ago today, on March 15th, 44 B.C., a plot of 60 conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, succeeded in killing the Emperor Julius Caesar.
The sixty conspirators came to a meeting in the Forum Romanum with daggers hidden in their togas. They stabbed Caesar at least 23 times as he stood at the base of Pompey's statue.
E tu Brute? - Legend has it that Caesar said in Greek to Brutus, “You, too, my child?” The Senators all fled after the deed, and three slaves carried his body home to Calpurnia hours later.
A bust believed to be of Julius Caesar, uncovered at Thera
The unwitting conspirators had no long-range plan beyond killing Caesar, and, in a major F***-up, they did not also assassinate Mark Antony. Brutus apparently went soft. The assassins had only a small band of gladiators to back them up. Marc Antony (whom we usually call Mark Anthony in English), however, had a whole legion, the keys to the privy purse, and Caesar's will.
Eventually a peace was brokered, and the 60 assassins were let off the hook.
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