Monday, February 23, 2004
A Very Special Weekend of Race on TV and Nader plays spoiler again?
Somebody, please stop this man. 2000 was bad enough, but now Nader wants to play spolier again in one of the most important elections in this country's history as he announces his Independent candidacy for President?
Related reading:
- Nader rejects spoiler label in new presidential bid. (CNN.com)
- Nader Defends Candidacy as Democrats Criticize Decision to Run. (Washington Post)
I thought the Shiite majority was the problem in Iraq?! British Iraq mediator fears a powderkeg: an Anglican Christian clergyman mediating in Iraq says he fears civil war could erupt if the U.S.-led administration fails to win over the Sunni Muslim minority. (Reuters UK)
And Iraqi exiles [are] still getting paid, despite false intelligence. (Seattle Times)
So. How has our commander-in-chief, with his laser focus on "national security" and the "War on Terror" been doing on these issues recently? More on the Pakistan nuclear black market scandal:
Where did the jobs go? Is "offshoring," or something else, to blame? Daniel McGinn tries to answer the question in "Help Not Wanted." (Newsweek)
As Election 2004 picks up steam, John Gertner asks the question: are campaigning and voting just marketing and consumption in "The very, very personal is political." An excerpt:
And the trainwreck is back on the rails: Diddy, Fonswroth, Chopper, Babs and the rest of the crew return in the third season of MTV's Making the Band 2 premiering March 4 @ 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
"Semi-blog wars," part 2: I had to bring it to some cornball who described me as " probably... a person who grew up listening to the Beetles [sic] and Elvis and thought Will Smith was our first gangsta rapper" on the Coolfer website last week in a comments thread about the efforts of Public Enemy's Chuck D to start a new hip hop music video channel. The "cornball" in question, Jason, was gracious enough to admit he was wrong in his response to my comments though. Still no response yet from Isabelle on gavinsblog however.
Now that I am slowly getting sucked into the Blogosphere beyond posting a few comments on news, politics and music on this site every day, here's a question I've become curious about: daily (or frequent) bloggers, how much time do you spend on your blog every day? A friend of mine who reads this site daily asked me that question the other day. I told him maybe an hour or so each day as I kind of add stories as I see them on sites I surf to anyway as matter of course. I then edit them all together when I feel I have enough stuff or don't want to spend any more time on it. Of course, since I work out of my home, and not in an office, I am able to go back and fix things throughout the day without raising the ire of a boss looking over my shoulder, so my time estimate might be (embarsassingly) low.
Movie fans: avoid Cabin Fever, this might be one of the worst movies I have ever seen, period. Absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever and that's even taken into account that it has nudity in it.
Dave Chapelle has had the race issue on lock in the comedy world with his show but Larry David took a stab at it in a pretty funny episode, called "The Surrogate," of his HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. And I finally caught that surreal "Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories" episode of Chappelle's Show that has everyone talkin' last night as well as ego trip's race special TV's Illest Minority Moments. I think they're gonna need to do some follow up episodes 'cos there's way too much stuff to think it all got covered in just that one show. It was bugged out watching clips of the Patridge Family episode centered around Danny Bonaduce joining a quasi-Black Panthers organization and the discussion of COPS, Ponch (sp?) from CHiPS and the Sesame Street "What Race Am I?" quiz stuff was pretty funny too. F-ck it, the whole thing was pretty well done.
Finally, everyone else is doing it, so why not me too?:
Your Instructions:
Step 1: Open your MP3 [CD] player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 4: Profit!
The list:
01. Queen Latifah - Just Another Day
02. Dave Hollister - Yo Baby's Daddy
03. Mary J. Blige - A Dream
04. Gravediggaz - Bang Your Head
05. Monie Love - Read Between the Lines
06. Wu-Tang Clan - Impossible
07. DJ Solo - Darkage
08. Brownstone - Searching (For Our Love)
09. MJG feat. Rodney Ellis - That Girl
10. Big Star - September Gurls
11. Chocolate Genius - Don't Look Down
12. Queens of the Stone Age - Do It Again
13. Wu-Tang Clan - Dog Sh!t
14. JJ72 - Snow
15. 2 Many DJ's - J'aime Regarder Les Mecs/Dance to the music/Oh Sheila (A capella)
16. Sheek - D Block freestyle
17. The Roots - Rock You
18. Royce da 5'9 - War (from unreleased "King of Detroit" Tommy Boy album)
19. The Breeders - Saints
20. Bad Brains - Banned in DC
21. Soul Coughing - Paint
22. Will Smith - Wild Wild West
23. Chocolate Genius - Safe and Sound
24. Domingo feat. Eminem and Feel-X (who he?) - Hustlers & Hardcore (from "Presents: Behind the Doors of 13th Floor")
25. Jai - Open
Ah man, my list wasn't even that embarassing after all that. Trust me, I have a lot of different music on my PC that I didn't really want to keep on CD anymore but that I still wanted a copy of to play that would probably be embarassing to admit in public to having. But it came up almost all hip hop and R&B when I loaded everything and hit the shuffle button. Made for a pretty interesting morning listen though. I got to track #81 out of about 6000 ("How We Roll" by Eigthball feat. Canibus & Panama P.I for the curious. WTF? Well that's what it said in my Musicmatch player at least).
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Related reading:
- Nader rejects spoiler label in new presidential bid. (CNN.com)
- Nader Defends Candidacy as Democrats Criticize Decision to Run. (Washington Post)
I thought the Shiite majority was the problem in Iraq?! British Iraq mediator fears a powderkeg: an Anglican Christian clergyman mediating in Iraq says he fears civil war could erupt if the U.S.-led administration fails to win over the Sunni Muslim minority. (Reuters UK)
And Iraqi exiles [are] still getting paid, despite false intelligence. (Seattle Times)
So. How has our commander-in-chief, with his laser focus on "national security" and the "War on Terror" been doing on these issues recently? More on the Pakistan nuclear black market scandal:
"In pursuit of both profits and a kind of Islamic nuclear parity, [ Abdul Qadeer] Khan passed on equipment and know-how to Iran and Libya, and made offers to Iraq and most recently Syria, officials say. Khan also helped North Korea's covert program.From "Black Market Nukes" in Newsweek.
"One senior U.S. official [said] that Khan's role in destabilizing the 21st century will "loom up there" with Hitler's and Stalin's impact in the 20th.
Pakistan, not Iraq, is probably the world's most dangerous breeding ground for both WMD and terror [emphasis added]. But Pakistan is also a key U.S. ally. U.S. officials had to swallow hard while President Pervez Musharraf only mildly disciplined Khan, a national hero, dismissing him from his ceremonial role as adviser. Newsweek has learned that it was the IAEA, rather than the Bush administration, that first put pressure on Pakistan to force Khan to publicly reveal his central role in the network."
Where did the jobs go? Is "offshoring," or something else, to blame? Daniel McGinn tries to answer the question in "Help Not Wanted." (Newsweek)
As Election 2004 picks up steam, John Gertner asks the question: are campaigning and voting just marketing and consumption in "The very, very personal is political." An excerpt:
"... should this election come down to a few battleground states, and should it come down in one or two of those places to a tiny, trembling, heart-stopping margin of victory, it is just as likely that one of the most crucial factors in November will not necessarily be what voters know about the candidates. It's what the candidates know about the voters."(New York Times, permalink via AllAboutGeorge.com)The best in hip hop blog writing can now be found at The Blogship set up and run by Eric of The Stinkzone.
And the trainwreck is back on the rails: Diddy, Fonswroth, Chopper, Babs and the rest of the crew return in the third season of MTV's Making the Band 2 premiering March 4 @ 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
"Semi-blog wars," part 2: I had to bring it to some cornball who described me as " probably... a person who grew up listening to the Beetles [sic] and Elvis and thought Will Smith was our first gangsta rapper" on the Coolfer website last week in a comments thread about the efforts of Public Enemy's Chuck D to start a new hip hop music video channel. The "cornball" in question, Jason, was gracious enough to admit he was wrong in his response to my comments though. Still no response yet from Isabelle on gavinsblog however.
Now that I am slowly getting sucked into the Blogosphere beyond posting a few comments on news, politics and music on this site every day, here's a question I've become curious about: daily (or frequent) bloggers, how much time do you spend on your blog every day? A friend of mine who reads this site daily asked me that question the other day. I told him maybe an hour or so each day as I kind of add stories as I see them on sites I surf to anyway as matter of course. I then edit them all together when I feel I have enough stuff or don't want to spend any more time on it. Of course, since I work out of my home, and not in an office, I am able to go back and fix things throughout the day without raising the ire of a boss looking over my shoulder, so my time estimate might be (embarsassingly) low.
Movie fans: avoid Cabin Fever, this might be one of the worst movies I have ever seen, period. Absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever and that's even taken into account that it has nudity in it.
Dave Chapelle has had the race issue on lock in the comedy world with his show but Larry David took a stab at it in a pretty funny episode, called "The Surrogate," of his HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm last night. And I finally caught that surreal "Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Stories" episode of Chappelle's Show that has everyone talkin' last night as well as ego trip's race special TV's Illest Minority Moments. I think they're gonna need to do some follow up episodes 'cos there's way too much stuff to think it all got covered in just that one show. It was bugged out watching clips of the Patridge Family episode centered around Danny Bonaduce joining a quasi-Black Panthers organization and the discussion of COPS, Ponch (sp?) from CHiPS and the Sesame Street "What Race Am I?" quiz stuff was pretty funny too. F-ck it, the whole thing was pretty well done.
Finally, everyone else is doing it, so why not me too?:
Your Instructions:
Step 1: Open your MP3 [CD] player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 4: Profit!
The list:
01. Queen Latifah - Just Another Day
02. Dave Hollister - Yo Baby's Daddy
03. Mary J. Blige - A Dream
04. Gravediggaz - Bang Your Head
05. Monie Love - Read Between the Lines
06. Wu-Tang Clan - Impossible
07. DJ Solo - Darkage
08. Brownstone - Searching (For Our Love)
09. MJG feat. Rodney Ellis - That Girl
10. Big Star - September Gurls
11. Chocolate Genius - Don't Look Down
12. Queens of the Stone Age - Do It Again
13. Wu-Tang Clan - Dog Sh!t
14. JJ72 - Snow
15. 2 Many DJ's - J'aime Regarder Les Mecs/Dance to the music/Oh Sheila (A capella)
16. Sheek - D Block freestyle
17. The Roots - Rock You
18. Royce da 5'9 - War (from unreleased "King of Detroit" Tommy Boy album)
19. The Breeders - Saints
20. Bad Brains - Banned in DC
21. Soul Coughing - Paint
22. Will Smith - Wild Wild West
23. Chocolate Genius - Safe and Sound
24. Domingo feat. Eminem and Feel-X (who he?) - Hustlers & Hardcore (from "Presents: Behind the Doors of 13th Floor")
25. Jai - Open
Ah man, my list wasn't even that embarassing after all that. Trust me, I have a lot of different music on my PC that I didn't really want to keep on CD anymore but that I still wanted a copy of to play that would probably be embarassing to admit in public to having. But it came up almost all hip hop and R&B when I loaded everything and hit the shuffle button. Made for a pretty interesting morning listen though. I got to track #81 out of about 6000 ("How We Roll" by Eigthball feat. Canibus & Panama P.I for the curious. WTF? Well that's what it said in my Musicmatch player at least).
