Lobster in a Bucket

Gas Holiday

This, while from the Huffington Post, is pretty much right in coming down hard on this gas holiday business that Mccain and Clinton are shilling. It's a joke. Worst of all, a Congressional Committee Report has already said as much, stating that the tax holiday will save the average household $30 this summer. Is $30 worth letting politicians off the hook for doing something to fix the energy crisis? The Post piece just does a very good job of polling people who are studying this solution, and who think it's pretty much junk, from across the political spectrum, junk.

I appreciate the Obama campaign's character here. They're not getting on the bandwagon, even when it risk losing them the blue-collar-trucker-vote-that-a-black-man-in-America-can't-win-anyway demographic.

This is How Good Pitchfork Fest Will Be

Atheist Churches?

This New York magazine article argues that atheism is growing in America. It interesting as it dances around a central problem for atheism's growth: it's too individualistic to make converts. It's worth reading but the basic premise that it's anchored in is a Pew statistic. In the most recent Pew survey a quarter of people identify themselves as not belonging to a particular religion. The author classifies this as atheism, or at least a sign that atheism has to be growing. It seems like weak reasoning to me. Granted I haven't seen the methodology on the Pew study, but can't you believe in divinity and not identify with a religion?

Into the Hitch

Here's an illuminating piece on Christopher Hitchens. It delves into some of his background and his interior life in an illuminating way. Hitchens fascinated me, unlike Dawkins et al, Hitchens is not an easy hero for atheists to buy into. He's much to rough around the political edges. It's a good read.

Headlights

I'm not sure if I've blogged this band before, but Headlights are a fun rock band in a way that a critic got right in comparing to early Rilo Kiley, Rilo before Jenny Lewis started posing in front of a mirror, flirting with superstardom. Pitchfork.tv has nice hi res versions of two songs from them, one embeded here, and below that a permalink to the other, check em out!

Permalink to "TV"

Comic Books Have Always Been This Vast Mountain Range That Gets Strip-Mined and Left Behind

And I quote that, from Frank Miller in this article. Apparently 22 deals have been signed in the last 6 weeks to develop graphic novels and comic series' into feature films. I thought Spider-Man 3 would finally put the brakes on the mining of all these stories. But I guess the success of other projects has kept this thing going. In slightly related news, May 2nd sees the premier of Iron Man the movie. Mostly, I yawned when I heard this. But I think Robert Downey Jr. is about perfect for Tony Stark, and I think that Marvel making the movie with it's own money could mean a much better film than Hollywood production, but we'll see.

Star Power

Gas

Gas is up to 3.50 on average nationwide. And for the first time ever, Americans are going to use less oil this year than the last. (20.61 million barrels a day!)

I think is mostly good news. I miss the days when I could travel cheaply on my own, or just go for a drive to clear my head, but I think this is a good sign that economic incentive will do a lot to push America to more responsible fuel technologies. I also flatter myself to think that some of this reduction comes from more people making choices to travel by bike, bus, or train.

Bowerbirds

Via La BLogotheque

Michael Polan on Bothering

Michael Polan has written some wonderful stuff. The Ominvores Dilemma and In Defense of Food are great, well-reasoned, and measured discussions of the ethics of eating in our modern era. He continues the persuasion with a great intro piece for the NYT magazine today. There are ethics to eating by the way. The organic movement, while commercialized, is rooted in truth. The mantra "buy local" also has merit. These things matter. Always nebulous statistics out there point to the dramatic carbon footprint that eating foods shipped from all over the world to america creates. This is just truth.

Polan points out several good things. Always practical, and humane, he simply suggests that all of us plant as much food in the ground for us to eat as we can. This is good advice. Local seeds planted locally has minimal impact a variety of ways. Polan also gave me a powerful challenge in regards to technology. Simply put, I hope technology will save us. I have no idea how to do very many things. Mostly I know how to read, research, and write, so I trust that someone out there will deliver me with cold fusion or some less fantastical technology. This may happen, but in the mean this sort of expectation does little but breed passivity. Because I can't solve the problem, I can't do anything. Polan argues persuasively that there's a lot more we can do that get better lightbulds.

Catacombs Music Video 08

My alma mater Covenant College started up a music video contest my Senior year for the different halls. Our entry was typical of my time. I won't say more. You can just watch it.

But I was pleasantly surprised by this years entry. Drew Belz did a fine job.

Architecture Video

Sometimes I feel like I'm listening to an update of 3rd wave Christian Ska band when I hear Architecture in Helsinki. But this isn't an altogether bad thing. At least not with this much fun and whimsy.

Pitchfork.tv BTW is pretty much a good thing.

China Art Factory

One of the big trends in 20th century history attempts to move beyond "national" histories into "transnational" more global history that emphasizes the interconnectedness of ideas and lived experiences across borders. Historians are doing this for a variety of reasons. One is that they think it'll tell a richer, more meaningful story. Another is to de-emphasize the sense in which national history can make an individual nation seem exceptional and unique in a way that degrades other nations and is itself an inaccurate understanding.

I think this approach for transnational history is promising. I also doubt that for a future generation studying our decade, there will be a different way to tell things. Take this brief example. In China we have a perfect example. Artists, working like factory machines, crank out copies, exact, perfect copies of classic oil paintings for consumption throughout the world. When asked to do their own self-portrait, the imprint of their job is unmistakable. These artists are hugely gifted, but their process of finding influences and identity is engulfed by the massive consumption and demand of global capitalism. This will be a transnational story.

What We Think the Lincoln-Douglas Debates Would Have Been Like on Abc

This is really funny, tragically true.

Pen Spinning

When I used to debate competitively in high school, we all worked hard at enhancing our powers as debating masters through the pen spin. Most of us just could spin our pen from a typical writing position, around our thumb, and back again. These Japanese kids are kung fu masters by comparison. The heavy metal soundtrack is essential too. These precise, blazing fast moves are only done justice by the wail of a guitar played by a man in tight pants and teased long hair.

Thing I didn't feel

At 5:40 in the morning some folks were jolted out of bed by an earthquake, 5.4 they say. I was sleeping and I didn't wake up.

Ze Frank is Bankable Genius

This is a new project started by Ze Frank. The idea is simple. Get people to find a childhood picture, and then shoot a close approximation now. The results are good. Very good.

2:42

Pardon his French, but this little op-ed was a nice read. The perfect pop song length, as this guy sees it is two minutes, forty-two seconds. He can marshall some real gems too.

Danish Modern

This is the kind of thing that I'm saved from buying because I live in South Bend, not Chicago.

Whimsey

This site, called 'skine.art, could be a little more curated, but overall it's a wonderful idea. Artists uploading images of their sketches in the near hipster-ubiquitous moleskin journal. I dig it.

Stewart on Obama Gaffe

For Two

If in some fantastic future I had to commute with my other to the same place, I'd want to rock one of these.

This one is here in my friendly South Bend. Via Craigslist. I tried to sell a friend of mine in the department on buying it. He and his wife both are at Notre Dame every day. I thought that a tandem would be a wonderful way to get there. Better even than two bikes. He just laughed. I think the bike's still for sale.

Alan Kors on Civilization

Human Civilization 1.5 Minutes

Pulitzer Prize in History

The Pulitzer is not just for journalists, or even non-fictionists. The Pulitzer people give out a history award every year for the best work in US history. This year's winner is Daniel Walker Howe for his history of the US in the first half of the nineteenth century, What Hath God Wrought. His book is really good storytelling and excellent scholarship. Overall, some of the economic and social transformations that moved through the US at this point Howe sees in a good light. So overall, it's a pretty agreeable, and responsible book. Howe is in semi-retirement, but he's going to be giving a talk later this semester for the eighteenth century colloquium that I'm taking right now with my advisor. It should be a good discussion.

Wanderlust

The visual style of this new Bjork video takes my breath away. But like a lot of Bjork's stuff, it's more than a little obscure. And it's in 3-D.

National Geographic on China

This is a nice piece on industrial growth in China, with pictures.

I often find myself thinking about the booming of Chinese business with dread. It just seems like too much, overwhelming growth, unsustainable living. I think of NYC along similar lines. China becomes a sinking ship in my mind. But on the other hand, this article does a wonderful job of taking the growth in China, where a city appears from farmland in a matter of months, and makes it a human story. People in China are living this boom. People in China are being changed more than we ever will by this boom.

Slums

Are suburban and urban environments like two poles? If one becomes poorer, does the other get richer? In any case, this Atlantic Monthly article speaks about the inevitable effect of abandoned, foreclosed, and hastily rented suburban homes that were built in the last real estate boom. In short, there is beginning to be anecdotal evidence that crime, vandalism, and traditionally "urban" problems are occurring in these areas. I know for a fact that in Philadelphia as areas in South, Northeast, and West Philly gentrify, African-American families are leaving the city limits faster than young urban professionals and hipsters can fill up the abandoned homes.

Similarly, abandoned homes in suburban areas are having problems getting filled. Some of them are for lack of buyers (a couple thousand-home development at the tail end of bubble can be like that), but in other cases banks are foreclosing on their mortagers and then not taking the title of the house in order to avoid paying taxes on a propert they know they can't sell. Why foreclose in the first place? Accounting, I think. By doing the foreclosure the finances are shored up on paper and the bad loan closed out.

But the effect is that homes in slumping markets are abandoned, and will in all likelihood remain that way.

Happiness?

Here's the new video Goldfrapp did for their single "Happiness". I'm a bit perplexed by the thing. The hopping man in the white suit just makes me tired. He hops a lot. And doesn't especially evoke happiness. But a good video...about something.

Dying

This is a good photo-essay about death. It shows hospice patients before and after, and focuses on their way of coping. Arresting.