his own advisers! (well, seems like just one in particular. one who also uses "an ethnic slur for the chinese."
The candidate’s remarks on the Middle East and national security have raised questions about his knowledge of the subject, and advisers say tutoring is having little effect.
i saw more shaming than mocking. which seemed appropriate to me. but kevin may also have a point, from a political perspective.
Chris Cillizza on the post-Paris push among Republicans to keep Syrian refugees out of the country:
Over the past 24 hours, almost half of the nation's governors — all but one of them Republicans — have said they plan to refuse to allow Syrian immigrants into their states in the wake of the Paris attacks carried out by the Islamic State....That stance has been greeted with widespread ridicule and disgust by Democrats who insist that keeping people out of the U.S. is anathema to the founding principles of the country.
....Think what you will, but one thing is clear: The political upside for Republican politicians pushing an immigration ban on Syrians and/or Muslims as a broader response to the threat posed by the Islamic State sure looks like a political winner.
Cillizza has some poll numbers to back this up, but he's right in more ways than just that. Here's the thing: to the average person, it seems perfectly reasonable to be suspicious of admitting Syrian refugees to the country. We know that ISIS would like to attack the US. We know that ISIS probably has the wherewithal to infiltrate a few of its people into the flood of refugees. And most voters have no idea how easy it is to get past US screening. They probably figure it's pretty easy.
So to them it doesn't seem xenophobic or crazy to call for an end to accepting Syrian refugees. It seems like simple common sense. After all, things changed after Paris.
Mocking Republicans over this—as liberals spent much of yesterday doing on my Twitter stream—seems absurdly out of touch to a lot of people. Not just wingnut tea partiers, either, but plenty of ordinary centrists too. It makes them wonder if Democrats seriously see no problem here. Do they care at all about national security? Are they really that detached from reality?
The liberal response to this should be far more measured. We should support tight screening. Never mind that screening is already pretty tight. We should highlight the fact that we're accepting a pretty modest number of refugees. In general, we should act like this is a legitimate thing to be concerned about and then work from there.
Mocking it is the worst thing we could do. It validates all the worst stereotypes about liberals that we put political correctness ahead of national security. It doesn't matter if that's right or wrong. Ordinary people see the refugees as a common sense thing to be concerned about. We shouldn't respond by essentially calling them idiots. That way lies electoral disaster.
he doesn't mention black lives matter and police violence. i think these things are going to be a big part of the election and if republicans can convince the unwashed masses that there is a war on the police (which isn't a hard sell), that seems like a real danger for the democrats to me.
Ezra Klein says America is doing a whole lot better than Republican presidential candidates make it sound:
They would be surprised to find that unemployment is at five percent, America's recovery from the financial crisis has outpaced that of other developed nations, the percentage of uninsured Americans has been plummeting even as Obamacare has cost less than expected, and there's so much money flowing into new ideas and firms in the tech industry that observers are worried over a second tech bubble.
....This leaves Republicans with two problems. The first is that the economy simply isn't as bad as they're making it out to be — and so the apocalyptic rhetoric may well run into month after month of good jobs numbers during the general election....The second is that Republicans are increasingly focused on economic problems they don't really know how to solve, and don't have much credibility to say they will solve.
This is all completely correct, but I think there's an interesting point buried here: Republicans aren't really talking about the economy when they adopt this "apocalyptic" rhetoric. In fact, so far this hasn't been an election about the economy at all.
It's a culture war election. The topics that have really driven the campaign so far are illegal immigration, political correctness, abortion, Obamacare, Vladimir Putin, the war on Christianity, and so forth. By contrast, the attacks on the economy mostly feel pro forma and are used primarily to add flavor to the real issue driving Republican voters. And right now, that issue is the apparent feeling among many conservatives that the America they love is spiraling down the drain, becoming weak and dependent and altogether too brown.
Obviously this has been building for years, but it feels like this is the first election in which it's really front and center. Of course, if America is really sinking into socialism and social degeneration, then the economy must be doing badly too. So all the candidates do their best to make it sound like Democrats have driven us into a ditch. That's normal politics, but this year it's also a stand-in. When they say the economy is doing badly, what they really mean is that America is doing badly. And their audiences are eating it up.
In a photo set on Flickr, Alan Taylor compares the 1963 and 1991 editions of Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever and notes many changes to make it more progressive and inclusive, particularly with regard to gender roles. For instance, in this one, Mother is joined by Father in the kitchen:
And in this one, "beautiful screaming lady" becomes "cat in danger":
"Frameworks of taste rely on dumb and great things to exist in concert with one another," Daniel Lopatin wrote earlier this year in an essay about the…
Thirty-seven percent of white Americans believe that the police treat black people less fairly; 70 percent of black Americans feel the same way. Similar chasms…
Details about Shane Carruth's new film have been scarce, but there are a few things to share. First off, here's what The Modern Ocean is about:
The storyline revolves around vengeance and the fierce competition for valuable shipping routes and priceless materials that converge in a spectacular battle on the rolling decks of behemoth cargo ships.
"This epic tale, fraught with danger and intrigue, takes us from the ancient trading houses of Algeria to the darkest depths of the ocean floor."
Carruth expanded on his ideas for the film in an interview with Motherboard a few months ago. He's also got himself some stars for the film: Anne Hathaway, Keanu Reeves, Daniel Radcliffe, and Jeff Goldblum are gonna be in it.
says on the media: "If there is a truly bipartisan institution in this country it may be the team at Bad Lip Reading. So very, very good."
Democratic hopefuls discuss the important issues of our day. Like on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/badlipreading Follow on Twitter! http://twitter.com/ba...
I have been waiting for the results of this all day:
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. – Early results from the Nov. 3 election show voters are overwhelmingly in favor of a school board recall for three members.
If the recalls pass, Julie Williams in District 1, John Newkirk in District 2 and Ken Witt in District 5 would be replaced.
Jefferson County officials approved a recall election for the three school board members in August after the group Jeffco United for Action finalized petitions.
You may or may not be aware but last year students began walking out of class and protesting as the board tried to turn advanced college prep classes into jokes. Teacher and parents took up the cause and started the recall process. The same out of state money tried to swing this vote, but were unsuccessful.
I’m hoping this starts a tide of similar recalls in the state.
A man accused of igniting a pipe bomb outside the Colorado Springs branch of the NAACP in January was sentenced Tuesday to five years in a federal prison.
Have you noticed that non-mainstream films are increasingly being produced/financed/released through Amazon, HBO, and Netflix and not the big studios? The latest example is Spike Lee's new joint, Chi-raq. Set among the gang violence in modern-day Chicago, the film is an adaptation of an ancient Greek play by Aristophanes called Lysistrata.
Originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end the Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace -- a strategy, however, that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for being an early exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society.
Even with all the big names attached -- Lee, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes, John Cusack -- I wonder if a movie with a predominantly African-American cast, strong women characters, and based on an Aristophanes play would get greenlit at a major studio these days.
Seven years after his directorial debut with the fantastic Synecdoche, New York comes Charlie Kaufman's second movie as a director, a stop-motion animated film called Anomalisa. The film successfully raised funds on Kickstarter and will be out in select theaters in December.
The title track of Sam Shepherd's debut album as Floating Points was inspired by a dream: A migratory bird strays from its flock and is swallowed up by the forest, mimicking the way our atoms are absorbed into the fabric of the universe when we die (or so goes one theory, anyway). We might find ourselves "reincarnated as a SIM card in Singapore, or as a beetle in Scotland," as Shepherd told Pitchfork recently.
He recorded the song "Elaenia" the very next morning, and its improvised, fluid form mirrors the dream's holistic vision. Made with just a Fender Rhodes electric piano and a handful of arcane synthesizers, it bobs between gurgles and limpid, lyric melodies. At more than seven minutes long, it is the second-longest song on the album, and also the most spare— just a handful of chords, some rumble, and a lot of nuance. Like an ocean swell, it is simple on the surface but complex beneath, and the same could be said of Elaenia as a whole.
Though comparatively short—just seven songs totaling some 43 minutes—Elaenia is rich and welcoming, balancing Shepherd's intelligence with intuition. Flitting between strange time signatures and simple pulses, it utilizes mostly analog synthesizers, pairing them with live instrumentation: electric bass, guitar, piano, live drums, and strings. It is as warm and fluid an "electronic" album as you will hear all year, and it has a timeless feel: There's no reason it could not have been written and recorded 10, 20, or even 30 years ago.
For long-time fans of the UK producer, musician, and DJ, Elaenia feels both like a surprise and a logical extension of his previous singles and EPs. Rhythms are played, not looped or sampled; the album skirts the edges of the dancefloor, flitting between ambient miniatures and extended jams falling somewhere between post-rock and jazz fusion. But nothing here feels like a radical departure, which is a testament to Shepherd's gradual process of refinement. He is trained in neuroscience and epigenetics, but it would be just as easy to imagine him as a furniture builder who had spent the past six years working on a single desk. The underlying structure of his work has remained more or less constant for years, but with every recording, it gets a little smoother, a little more perfect, inching a little closer to its ideal form.
Shepherd has cited Talk Talk as an inspiration, and you can hear the influence of albums like Laughing Stock on the porous fabric of Elaenia. It's a record best heard loud, because the quiet parts can be very quiet, and its spirit lies less in melodies or even moods than in tiny details. With the exception of the cosmic jazz-leaning "Silhouettes (1,11,111)", you're left less with hummable themes than with small, passing moments: the burnished gleam of a lone Rhodes key hit hard, a faint scrap of radio static, soft notes that cling to each other like burrs.
In keeping with the transfiguration theme, the music seems to have no stable center at all. It moves like clouds in the sky, slowly and imperceptibly shape-shifting, and at any given moment, what's being played matters less than how we arrived at that point. The sense of an unbroken line is paramount, leading to the album's final thrill when it is suddenly yanked up at a 45-degree angle. In five minutes it goes from silence to jet-engine loud. Synthesizers snarl, the string section goes into overdrive, and the drum kit rolls on inexorably, explosion upon explosion. The song, "Peroration Six", is the only one where you feel Shepherd and company really letting loose. It's a revelation and a rush, a full-on "Fuck yeah!" shouted into the coming storm. The last thing we hear sounds almost like a wrong note, and then it's all simply cut short. The silence is deafening; it feels like waking up from a very heavy dream.
We’ll send you a reminder of where you left off.
Your reminder will be sent
When the Confederate States of America seceded, the response of the United States of…
Sex on Campus The Game Is Rigged Why sex that’s consensual can still be bad. And why we’re not talking about it. Photograph by Andrew Lyman SCAD class of 2016…
In 2010, the announcement that Brian Eno had signed to Warp Records was an event. His decades-long history of groundbreaking electronic music had a lot to do with Warp even existing at all, so the fact he was going to be working with the imprint known for taking the torch in the 1990s and 2000s brought dreams of great things. Lost in the excitement was the memory that Eno had for a number of years been making low-key records that made little impact outside of his cult. Another Day on Earth from 2005, his first song-based solo album in many years, had some memorable songs, and his 2008 pairing with David Byrne, Everything Happens Today, found an audience. But ’90s and ’00s instrumental releases like Drawn From Life, The Drop, Neroli, and The Shutov Assembly didn’t come close to entering his canon. The Warp signing obscured the fact that Eno always had more than his share of uneven records, in part because he’s never been the sort of artist interested in perfection. So the fact that four of the records and collaborations released on Warp have ranged from a lovely retread of familiar ground (2012’s Lux) to eminently forgettable collaborations (the tworecords with poet Rick Holland, and the first with Underworld’s Karl Hyde) should surprise nobody.
High Life, though, is a genuine surprise. As the second meeting between Eno and Hyde in the last four months, it would have been reasonable to expect outtakes, another set of OK half-songs to accompany the ones released earlier this year. But High Life—recorded in just five days, with much of it played and processed live—is something else altogether. This is Eno’s best vocal album in 25 years, since his 1990 collaboration with John Cale, Wrong Way Up. It’s interesting to go back that far because High Life has a few things in common with that record, most prominently the elements inspired by pop music from the African continent. Yes, this is a recurring obsession of Eno’s, dating back at least to his first co-billed collaboration with David Byrne, 1981’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. But on High Life it’s again made explicit, from the title (Highlife is a broad genre of jazz-inflected West African pop music that emerged late in the last century) on down.
That said, many of the references are less musical and more textural, and guitars are the first thing you notice. The opening “Return” is nine minutes of drone-guitar bliss, as Karl Hyde strums two chords furiously with the sort of pinched, trebly, delay-heavy tone that evokes both West African styles and the Edge circa The Unforgettable Fire. The tension of pivoting between those two chords without resolution is softened by Eno’s voice, which he layers into sturdy central melody softened by billowing harmonies. It’s the kind of blindingly simple thing that nobody does better than Eno, and it points to why this record towers over much of his recent output—it sounds analog, like people in a room playing who could make mistakes. Despite his technological pedigree, Eno has always been most inspired by the place where abstract mathematics meet the messiness of nature. His earlier collaborative efforts on Warp, as well as Small Craft on a Milk Sea, felt like records where meaning was carved from endless possibility; High Life shows how much more he can wring out of just a handful of ideas.
If I’m leaning heavily toward Eno’s contributions here, it’s because so many of his songwriting and production signatures are in the foreground. Hyde is the guitarist throughout the record, but Eno’s fingerprints are all over his approach. “DBF” is a relatively upbeat track with a chicken scratch-funk feel that makes me think of Talking Heads’ “Born Under Punches”, while the slow and dreamy line in “Time to Waste It” brings to mind an ’80s interpretation of King Sunny Ade. But we’re talking about something more than just a collection of global music signifiers here—influences are stripped down, transformed, and often turned into something disorienting and strange through Eno’s processing. “Time to Waste It” has pinched, warped, and ultimately very weird vocals of uncertain origin which seem to be singing lead from different songs with each new line. “Lilac”’s overlapping guitar lines have the frenetic pulse of classical minimalism, with odd bleeps and squawks mixing in with the chords, and they’re contrasted with the richly harmonized vocals, which remind us how in tune he is with the pure joy of singing.
That big-hearted spirit is embedded into the record as a whole. I count one dud among the six tracks, the just-OK “Moulded Life”, which has some nice sounds but feels a bit like processing-for-processing’s-sake. But that is more than redeemed by the elegiac closer “Cells & Bells”, where grinding Fennesz-like electronics are set against a mass of voices singing a dark but faintly hopeful prayer. It’s a moving end to a startling and inspiring record. Eno’s been involved with quite a few of those in the past, but it’s especially nice to experience a new one that reaches us in the present moment.
Kansas governor Sam Brownback has been leading an epic battle to turn his state into a supply-side nirvana. So how's it going? A new poll—possibly the greatest poll in American history—suggests that Kansans are a wee bit confused:
When it comes to Brownback’s tax policy, which has featured heavy cuts in income taxes and taxes on businesses, three-fifths (61 percent) of respondents felt the policy had been “a failure” or “a tremendous failure” in terms of economic growth. About one-third of respondents said it was “neither a success nor failure” and 7 percent said they felt it was at least “a success.” Only 0.2 percent agreed it was “a tremendous success.”
But at the same time, 61 percent of respondents favor “somewhat lower” or “much lower” taxes and spending in Kansas. And yet...about 63 percent of respondents felt taxes on top income earners should be increased while 6 percent felt they should be decreased.
What does this mean? That tax cuts have been a failure, but maybe they'll work if we just cut them more? That tax cuts have been a failure, but Kansans just want low taxes anyway? That Kansans don't really care if their economy is any good?
On “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning, a panel of men was convened to determine the “proper etiquette for wearing leggings,” and they did so in the classiest way possible — by parading young women in leggings before them so that they might critique their appearance.
The panel was responding to a video that went viral yesterday in which a woman, as Steve Doocy kept repeating, claimed that leggings “ain’t pants.” To determine whether this woman was correct, Doocy ushered three woman in leggings before “Duck Dynasty” star Willie Robertson, Fox News legal analyst Arthur Aidala, and Andrew Sansone.
“Are you comfortable with the women in your life parading around in public in leggings?” Doocy asked Robertson.
“They ain’t pants,” Robertson explained, “but my girls, they wear long shirts to cover up their lady-parts.”
Aidala replied that in his household there’s a rule — “if it’s not worn in the monastery, they’re not leaving the house.”
Doocy then introduced them to “Kaitlyn,” who strutted on stage accompanied by the kind of music you imagine grown men who dream of one day owning their own ice cream trucks listen to. “They guys are looking at Kaitlyn,” Doocy said, although one of the panelists insisted “I’m not looking! For the record, I’m looking away.”
“I think that’s modest,” Robertson said.
Doocy half-replied, saying that “earlier, you said you’d like to see something covering” and pointed at the model’s “lady-parts.”
“It’s not so tight you can see a tattoo on her leg,” Aidala interjected.
“You don’t have tattoos?” Doocy inquired, “or is that too personal?” And from there the segment only became creepier, its awfulness culminating when the “inappropriately” dressed woman sauntered out.
“Oh my god,” one of the off-screen panelists said. “I like the full effect.”
“Steve, we all took our nitroglycerin pills before she came on set, just to make sure,” Aidala opined.
“She looks great going to the gym,” Sansone said, “but going to the mall?”
“Come on, step up!” Aidala implored him, but when Sansone failed to answer, Aidala turned to the model and said, “God bless you, your physique. You earned that — but I wouldn’t wear that to church on Sunday.”
Watch the entire segment at your own peril below via Fox News.
Dragon and Phoenix must fight, for it is the way of all things. They have fought since the dawn of time and will still battle across the skies long after the memories of our deeds have faded into dust.
Or something like that. I know it involves eternity and mythical creatures. You know, like “moderate Republicans” and stuff.
Democratic leaders led by former Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday challenged Republican presidential candidates in town for a debate to tackle climate change, public lands and needs of the recreation economy.
Librarians will need to cherish their special talent as “stewards” while letting go of the instinct to be “collectors.” Knowledge in physical form needs to be preserved and curated. But with digital information pouring into iPhones and Kindles in petabytes, libraries need to rethink old habits. They cannot collect everything, or even a small fraction of everything.
i've been saying this for awhile: "(Here, it’s worth noting that if she’s the nominee, Clinton will have the unusual advantage of campaigning with a popular ex-president, a well-liked sitting vice president, a decently liked outgoing president, and a popular first lady.)"
We remember the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner because of the speeches. In 2007, a still-struggling Sen. Barack Obama gave the speech that defined his message—“change we can believe in”—and transformed his campaign. But speeches are just a small part of this event. Overwhelmingly, the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner is a test run for campaign infrastructure. Can you bring supporters to a full day of events? Can you use that to expand your reach in the state? Can you demonstrate enthusiasm by bringing those supporters to the dinner itself, where people holler and cheer for candidates like spectators at a game (or teenagers at a student government conference)?
The answer for the two largest campaigns in the state—Hillary Clinton’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’—was a clear yes. Saturday morning, Clinton volunteers manned posts around the convention area, cheering every car that drove into downtown Des Moines or every person who walked by. Referencing Katy Perry’s appearance that afternoon, a young man in a shark costume danced for those passing by, while a group of volunteers waved a cardboard cutout of Clinton.
That afternoon, both campaigns held large rallies at sites around downtown. (Martin O’Malley also held a “rally,” where little more than a hundred people heard a brief speech and listened as he played the guitar.) An estimated 4,000 people gathered outside of the Hy-Vee Hall—where Iowa Democrats held the actual dinner that evening—to see Katy Perry perform for the Clinton campaign. Opening, of course, was Bill Clinton, who made an impassioned pitch for Hillary as the president America needs to protect and defend progressive gains from the Republican Party. “Stop rewarding the strategy of destruction,” he said, urging the crowd to oppose GOP antics in Congress. President Clinton wasn’t just an advocate; he also showcased his much-heralded political skills to deal with an animal rights protester. “We got it. Will you please quit now?” he said to the man, who was moved offstage. Clinton turned then to the crowd and praised the heckler, making him a contrast to the Republican Party. “At least that guy is for something. He didn’t come here to bad-mouth anybody.”
(Here, it’s worth noting that if she’s the nominee, Clinton will have the unusual advantage of campaigning with a popular ex-president, a well-liked sitting vice president, a decently liked outgoing president, and a popular first lady.)
Just a few blocks away—across the river that divides downtown Des Moines—Sanders held his event. Smaller than Clinton’s gathering—and much smaller than the usual Sanders rally, which draws thousands and thousands of people—it was almost low-key compared to Clinton’s quasi-festival atmosphere. Still, it was lively. Outside the main space, volunteers collected signatures and information from attendees—to contact them later—while small vendors set up tables to sell assorted swag, including tracts on socialism. A plane flew over the crowd flying a “Feel the Bern” sign. A preacher revved up the crowd, while a drum line and step team of young black Americans practiced in preparation for the march to the dinner itself. When Sanders finally arrived, he gave a shortened and modified version of his stump speech, calling for a country where “billionaires” couldn’t “buy elections.”
Sanders didn’t say much about Clinton, but that wouldn’t hold. At the dinner itself—cheered on by a large section of extraordinarily enthusiastic supporters (“Feel the Bern” was a regular refrain, at times drowning out everything in the vicinity)—Sanders went on the attack for the first time of his campaign. “[L]et me be clear about the current trade deal that we are debating in Congress,” he said, referencing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “It is not now, nor has it ever been, the gold standard of trade agreements. I did not support it yesterday. I do not support it today. And I will not support it tomorrow.”
This was just the beginning. On same-sex marriage, climate, Wall Street, and the Iraq war, Sanders—following Obama’s script of eight years earlier—hit Clinton on principle. “Today, some are trying to rewrite history by saying they voted for one anti-gay law to stop something worse,” he said, criticizing Clinton’s remarks to Rachel Maddow on the Defense of Marriage Act. “Let us be clear. That’s just not true.” He continued: “It gives me no joy to say that I was largely right about the war. I am proud to tell you when I came to that fork in the road I took the right road even though it was not the popular road at the time.”
The message was simple: Hillary Clinton isn’t a real progressive. Not like Sanders, at least. And if elected, there’s no guarantee she’ll stick with you.
Since starting his campaign, Sanders has been single-minded in his focus on issues and ideas. Which makes this a real tonal shift. Bernie is going negative, and it could pull skeptical Democrats—who still aren’t sure on Clinton—as much as it could alienate him with the broad Democratic middle he needs to win beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.
O’Malley also had words for Clinton (and Sanders, for that matter), selling himself as a leader of “action, not words,” who isn’t a “weather vane that shifts its position every time the winds change.”
Clinton just gave her stump speech. That’s all. No mention of her performance before the Benghazi committee; no new policies or ideas; no mention of her opponents. If you’ve heard Clinton at any event in the past six months, you heard her at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. She was the only candidate to say “black lives matter,” and she pledged to “fight” for a country where “there are no ceilings for anyone” and “where a father can tell his daughter, ‘You can be anything you want to be, including the president of the United States of America.’ ”
Then again, if you’re Clinton, there’s no reason to switch gears. Iowa polls are close, but she—like Sanders—has built a formidable operation, informed by her 2008 loss to Obama. She’s behind in New Hampshire, but again, Team Clinton is working at all cylinders. And nationally, Clinton is far ahead of Sanders, with a sturdy electoral firewall in states like South Carolina and Nevada, where she holds large majorities with black and Latino Democrats.
The lesson from this Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, in other words, is that Clinton doesn’t think she’s going to lose and doesn’t plan to start a serious fight with her only real opponent. Of course, Clinton tried this front-runner strategy in 2008, and it failed. Miserably. However, 2016 isn’t 2008, and at this juncture, there’s no sign that Sanders can reach behind his base in the left wing of the Democratic Party. But if he can, then—once again—Clinton might regret this choice to play it safe.
The measure supported by Scott Walker and the Republican-led Legislature eliminates use of the John Doe law to investigate crimes that include bribery and misconduct in office.
has cost less than expected, and there's so much money flowing into new ideas and firms in the tech industry that observers are worried over a second tech bubble.
