Chris.Weekly.org - A Web Space

I have to go out of my way here to plug my all-time favorite magazine, Paste (”Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture”). Every issue comes with a full CD of eclectic but excellent indie music, outstanding writing, cultural insight, reliable reviews of books, film, bands, events and even video games. These guys are neck-deep in the vibrant community of amazing artists who mostly go unnoticed by the increasingly vapid commercial mainstream. I discovered Bon Iver, The National, Beirut and countless other phenomenal artists from this magazine. There’s so much worthless noise in our lives, so finding a strong, clear signal like this is refreshing and affirming. The website is a great companion to the print version too.

I’ve given friends subscriptions and they’ve enjoyed them too. As a “VIP” member I can give away $10 annual subscriptions. Write a comment below, or email me, if you want one and I’ll be glad to oblige.

I just stumbled across this blog:
http://www.juancole.com/
and agree wholeheartedly w/ its author’s take on the last three decades and what to do about it.

I’m a huge fan of John Taplin. I finally got around to reading this prescient essay he penned 18 months ago outlining his vision of a New Federalism. He describes a new model for our international and inter-state relations as the fall of neocon ideology leaves us in an interregnum or transition phase. It’s much less dry than I just made it sound though, a quick but rich read.

Do yourself a favor and check it out!

This letter from the editors of the New York Times is a pitch-perfect summary of the choice before us.
Please read it.

I tried to reply to a commenter on foxnews.com (don’t ask me why), and it’s not clear if my comment was rejected. Anyway here it is:

@kool-aid, and to the foxnews.com crowd at large:

(1) Fact: Fewer than 5% of small business owners make more than $250k/year. All the Rove-inspired smoke and mirrors in the world can’t change the fact that McCain’s tax policy benefits the tiny slice of the richest at the top, whereas Obama’s plan results in a substantial tax relief for everyday families.

(2) Fact: McCain/Palin, when pressed, have been unable to proffer a single example of a substantial difference from the Bush administration in military policy, foreign policy, energy or the economy. You can’t run against your own party, least of all when you vote with them most of the time.

(3) McCain has a long (and recent) history of championing deregulation, precisely the root causes of the “greed and corruption” he hypocritically rails against.

(4) As far as character, and “family values”, sorry if this gets a little ugly but if you want to lambast Obama for getting out the vote among the poor and under-represented, you have opened the door to this kind of response. McCain is a multiple divorcee who cheated on and left his crippled wife. No spin can succeed in comparing McCain’s family values to Obama, who married and is faithfully raising children with his childhood sweetheart. Also, McCain is accepting support from the same do-anything say-anything GOP operatives that slandered him just a few years ago. He might arguably once have been a maverick in the party, but in recent years he’s voted w/ disastrous Bush policies with ever-increasing consistency as his political ambitions have grown.

(5) Fact: McCain is a four-time survivor of the most deadly form of skin cancer, and the oldest candidate for President in our history. Insurance tables show statistically there is about a one in six chance of his death during a first term. His choice of VP was a political gamble that even hard-core GOP insiders reject as totally (and obviously) unqualified to lead in that event. Can you honestly tell me you can envision a President Palin and feel like that would make for a tenable situation?

McCain’s angry temperament, reckless from-the-hip decision-making style, divisive tactics, age, policies, and battles with cancer combine to make him a very, very dangerous threat to the stability of the United States.

As far as “proving” my intelligence, well, my IQ is about 144 as last measured. But it’s not about IQ. It’s about common sense. An angry old man and an ignorant young hockey mom, from the party whose policies have brought this great country to the brink of total disaster, do NOT represent our best chance at economic recovery and success in the 21st century.

Hyperwords/ is really, really cool. I watched the demo and installed the Firefox add-on and really like it.

http://www.smushit.com is a service for optimizing images to make websites perform better. Highly recommended!

I have lots of mixed feelings about this one. Anger and concern about private profit with public losses (or, “capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down”) is balanced against pragmatism; if the whole system collapses we all lose. I’m glad the amendments to the original proposal were made anyway. So hard to tell if this is the administration’s (hopefully) last “WMD! OMG! WTF!” fear-mongering BS, or if (assuming we don’t enter Great Depression 2) this was a critical and necessary save.

http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/ has great writing and interesting commentary.

http://change-congress.org/about/

I’ve written before in praise of Lessig’s vision and ethics and pragmatism, but now seems a good time to remind myself and anyone reading this that it is supposed to be about “we the people”, and the way to fix the f’d up system that lets things get like this, is to take direct action and change congress. That’s what this group is doing, I give them money and when possible will give them more time, please check it out. Regardless of your political leanings we can all agree that corruption is antithetical to freedom and justice.

http://change-congress.org/about/

From a comment I just posted on Taplin’s blog:

… body language, confidence, demeanor, stature… of course substance matters more than style, but the medium is at least part of the message here. The public is getting further hints of McCain’s angry, disrespectful, self-centered disposition, all of which are sharply contrasted with Obama’s coolness and grace under pressure, and consistent even-tempered restraint and politeness. McCain looked like the angry, spoiled, yes crotchety, sick old man he is, while Obama carried himself in a manner appropriate to the office.

Previous posts’ commentary about civility and diplomacy reinforce the point: temperament matters a great deal (never mind IQ or ethics, other areas where Obama crushes McCain), and tonight — even in McCain’s ostensible area of strength — Obama not only held his own on topic, he did it in a Presidential way. Yes, that matters.