Arkansawyer

Just what it says. Sit back and enjoy.

via David Weinberger

This morning’s early service at church was titled Music and Religion, Part II (I missed Part I, darn it), and among the folks who were there were a visiting couple. Someone suggested that I’d enjoy talking with them, and that turned out to be true. Phil Kennelty is a musician from the New York City area with opinions different from but as strong as mine (and possibly better-informed) about The Band.

He and I had one of those wonderful, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that! And what about” talks about various musicians and music that I have less and less these days. Lately, I’m more the “Let me tell you about” guy, which is fun, but not so much as talking with someone with whom you mutually (but respectfully!) interrupt, back and forth, giving your own thoughts and memories about the same topics.

I didn’t spend so much time talking with his wife, Sharon, but she and my wife bonded, I believe, over watching their obsessed husbands do their music thing. She seemed very nice, and laughed gracefully when the conversation ended and I shook Phil’s hand and said, “It was nice talking to you,” then turned to her and said, “And it would have been nice talking to you, if I’d stopped talking to your husband long enough.”

It’s nice being social and meeting interesting people. With any luck, we’ll meet these folks again.

“Sandwiches are as American as apple pie,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers, “and it’s just like the Democrats to attack them, and, by implication, our entire American way of life, and, by further extension, the very human act of eating, and, by even further extension, life itself, and, by extensive extension, the very concept of existence, both for human beings, and indeed, for the entire universe and, perhaps, even alternative universes.”

He suggested that Democrats would probably favor some more “Middle-Eastern-sounding food,” such as “kabobs or tacos or something.”

via Mark Kleiman at The Reality-Based Community

Of course, Dennis Perrin is probably right:

“We’re a better country than this,” Obama assures us. Really? What movie has he been watching? All I saw last night was collective mania and delusion. The fact that a black man may lead the next phase of empire is genius, a beautiful cover. How long the con will last is anyone’s guess. Obama still needs to get past McCain and a lot of suppressed white racism and fear before we’ll find out.

Those who believe I get an erection from writing such “cynical” thoughts either don’t know me or haven’t seriously read my work. I’m saddened by all this bullshit. There’s a younger man in me who wants to believe, but can’t, not when the truth stares us right in the face. As I watched Obama majestically riff, sitting with my 12-year-old son, a part of me wanted to be proud, to share this historic moment with a boy who hasn’t seen the kind of open racism that was casually expressed when I was his age. It would be so easy to do. Look at those faces in last night’s crowd. They crave change so much, desire a different reality, that they simply gave themselves to Obama, gazing upon him as The One who will make it all better. The symbolism was powerful, no doubt about it. Then the camera would cut to Joe Biden, breaking the spell. I don’t care how good Obama is on the stump, Biden’s still a savage pig. God, what a dreadful human being.

I’m not as convinced as Dennis, but he’s betting the odds. However, no matter how right Dennis is about the bogosity of hope, he’s also right about this:

But watching Obama last night gave me another thought, that of driving American reactionaries even crazier, which will happen should the president be of color and have that last name. Obama in the White House will seriously fuck with their fat heads. Good. I can definitely live with that.

Oh, yeah. That part is going to be made of pure win gravy, no matter what else happens.

Here’s a promise I’d give anything to hear a politician make in exactly these words:

via Andy on the Road

Liveblogging Outside the DNC (Because They Won’t Let Me In):

8:27p Cops make full use of their 11th Amendment: the right to beat up punk kids carrying daffodils because they called you a word you didn’t understand.

8:29p Protesters protest the curtailing of their right to protest.

8:32p All 127 protesters break up in 127 factions, each fighting to bring an end to a different atrocity going on somewhere around the world.

Satan to Speak at Republican Convention:

Furthering its stated goal of having the list of speakers “showcase the diversity of the Republican Party,” the latest addition of the Antichrist will add that final dimension of pure evil.

I especially like this part of the Republican platform:

passing a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as something that may only occur between a man and a woman, or a woman and a closeted gay Republican

Anjalee Deshpande Nadkarni (aka Drama Mama) says Hurrah for the IT department!

This past week I asked for a consultation on blackboard and the IT Blackboard Specialist came to my office and helped me figure out a few details of the new version I will be using this fall. He was quiet but extremely helpful and I was happy with the results of the meeting. A few days later I received an email from him that said he had received a request to change my name in Blackboard. He helpfully said he noticed I had a hyphenated name and wondered if I had spoken to HR about the name change. I related to him my saga of divorce and name change and courts and the payroll department. In short – I told him I was working on it, and thanks for the info.

This is a very common use case–name change due to divorce–and it’s shameful that so often this parenthetical remark is true:

(super easy when you get married, impossible if you ever divorce)

There’s a world of truth in that, pointing to the cultural biases and assumptions that permeate the supposedly objective world of IT.

So, how did this story end? Okay, it’s not really over, but here’s where it stands:

The next day I received another email…He ended wishing me well and assured me that they have a strong service ethic in IT and that I should not feel embarrassed about asking that the system reflects what I want to be called.

Bingo! I say this guy should be in charge of identity management at his institution

This will be, by necessity, a work in progress, but I’ll update as time goes on and people yell at me.

These are the two lists that inspired me to work up my own.

I don’t have my albums out, or my CDs sorted, so I can’t cruise them for favorites.

Much of my listening to new music the last few years has been by song rather than by record, so I’ve left the last three years blank for now.

Also, at least a couple of these feel like cheating to me. See if you can guess which ones:

1958: Bo Diddley, Bo Diddley

1959: An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer, Tom Lehrer

1960: At Newport 1960, Muddy Waters

1961: Africa/Brass, John Coltrane

1962: Howlin’ Wolf, Howlin’ Wolf

1963: With the Beatles, The Beatles

1964: I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash

1965: Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds, The Yardbirds

1966: Freak Out!, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention

1967: The Who Sell Out, The Who

1968: Astral Weeks, Van Morrison

1969: In A Silent Way, Miles Davis

1970: Hooker ‘N’ Heat, Canned Heat and John Lee Hooker

1971: Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones

1972: Talking Book, Stevie Wonder

1973: The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

1974: Diamond Dogs, David Bowie

1975: Horses, Patti Smith

1976: Small Change, Tom Waits

1977: Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Joni Mitchell

1978: This Year’s Model, Elvis Costello and the Attractions

1979: Broken English, Marianne Faithfull

1980: Beat Crazy, Joe Jackson Band

1981: Discipline, King Crimson

1982: NunSexMonkRock, Nina Hagen

1983: More Fun in the New World, X

1984: Let It Be, The Replacements

1985: Telephone Free Landslide Victory, Camper Van Beethoven

1986: Corpses of Foreign War, Eugene Chadbourne with the Violent Femmes

1987: Warehouse: Songs and Stories, Husker Du

1988: The Black Album, Prince

1989: Freedom, Neil Young

1990: Songs for Drella, Lou Reed and John Cale

1991: Achtung Baby, U2

1992: Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos

1993: Phobia, The Kinks

1994: Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix

1995: Tomorrow the Green Grass, The Jayhawks

1996: Dangerous Madness, Wayne Kramer

1997: Contemplating the Engine Room, Mike Watt

1998: Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey

1999: Bad Love, Randy Newman

2000: Life’ll Kill Ya, Warren Zevon

2001: Love and Theft, Bob Dylan

2002: Laundry Service: Washed and Dried, Shakira

2003: Decoration Day, Drive-By Truckers

2004: Stick it in Your Pocket, The Odds

2005: Separation Sunday, The Hold Steady

2006:

2007:

2008:

No, I don’t believe in corporal punishment, and no, I don’t believe this incident is representative of all corporal punishment, but I also don’t see how you can write a bright-line legal test that separates the two.

So, till someone figures that out, I have a simple rule to suggest: Hit a kid, go to jail.

Really. It’s that simple.