DISQUS

I will try to ignore the grand old old old old party convention just as I ignored the anointing of the messiah convention (except for reading the speeches -- I read Michelle's and am still trying to get through BO's).

I would only note here that I don't think you can possibly out-snark Christopher Buckley's "Op-Art" piece on the NYTimes website, his "Republican Convention Schedule." What a hoot!

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/01/o...

I assumed Buckley (like father William F.) was a Republican, but from this he appears to be more of an independent died-in-the-wool cynic, with which I can be strongly sympathetic. That impression would be reinforced by the black comedy Thank You For Smoking, based on his novel.

I would like to hear more of this "full throated" defense of Creationism. I'm full-throated myself, however, I think even an agnostic can come to a position of derisive doubt about Darwinism. My best friend abandoned religion a decade ago, but still guffaws at the outlandish claims of modern evolutionists. A good example of this line of logical thought is presented here:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed59.html

However, the campaign is surely not going to hinge on the religious beliefs of materialist Darwinists or Christians about origins. What we all want now is the dirt on Palin's 17-year old daughter being pregnant, right? Yeah, that's the burning issue about which enquiring minds want to know!

How many houses do John Kerry and Al Gore own? How many houses does Ted Kennedy own? Do they know? Even more interesting: How many 946 square foot ranch homes like the one I own would fit inside all the houses John Kerry and Al Gore and Ted Kennedy own? Enquiring minds... Boy I sure do hate those multiple house-owning rich Republican greedheads, though. Yeah, man! We want men of the people, like Nanci Pelosi (net worth $25 million plus) and Harry Reid (a relative pauper at $2-5 million), running things.

Ted, I feel your pain. I've been hurt by the inflation/dollar devaluation caused by the fiscal mismanagement of the current powers that be, coupled with the insult of the Fed artificially lowering interest rates and offering bailouts to keep the punchbowl full for the Wall Street bigwigs.

But I don't see much point in paying attention to either political convention. I never do. Hot air is hot air, whether it is exhaled by Donkeys or Elephants. Then I'll just drag myself sorrowfully out in November and hold my nose again.

Just a note for those who were intrigued by the popdose Juliana Hatfield guide, according to her website, Juliana is scheduled to appear on Jay Leno tomorrow night, Aug. 25. That is all. I'm hoping she'll play Law of Nature. I'm really loving that song. It's fabulous.

I suppose it was too much to hope that you could write a column mentioning radical Islamists without comparing them to conservative Christians. Or vice-versa. Par for this course, that's for sure. Next week I suppose we will be similar to Nazis. It's the inevitable progression.

I think the Saddleback forum set the stage for this campaign. But whatever happened to Obama's "anytime, anyplace" bravado about meeting McCain face to face to discuss the issues in a townhall meeting or a real debate (not the glorified press conferences they call debates nowadays)? We see just how um... uh... uh... above his pay grade that is for poor Obama, who is at sea without his scriptwriter. Prepared to lead this great nation? Yeah, in the bizarro world. Actually, Obama gave some decent textbook answers in that forum, but they were very nebulous, and as he himself put it, the Devil is in the details. Truer words were never spoken.

Jeff, you are spot on. I missed Season One, started watching with Season Two, and ultimately wondered what the effusive praise for the show was all about. I checked out S1 at the library to catch up, and wasn't all thrilled with the beginning of the series, either. However, it is enjoyable entertainment. I'll give the new season a chance, too. It's cruel to charge nearly a full season price for a half season on DVD. Fortunately, I recorded the hi-def digital broadcast, and converted it down to DVD-resolution myself. And honestly, my home recordings look better than the DVD editions.

I like ensemble cast programs where one "star" doesn't dominate almost all the scenes. The latter Star Trek series had that virtue. But ensemble programs where you have multiple ensembles in multiple locations and subplots -- it's too much for a 42-minute episode to handle.

I too was disappointed about Journeyman. Dramatically, it was very good. I had a bit of trouble with the premise. It looked like the series was moving toward an explanation of his time-shifting phenomenon, but I have a feeling that even then, it would have seemed ridiculous on the face of it. Still, you cared about that family and the characters, and that seemed to be enough. Journeyman had what Smallville has lost -- the contrast between the hero's personal sacrifice with the problems surrounding his "gift" and the satisfaction he has that he can truly change history, do something good in the world, help another human being avoid death and disaster. I liked it.

I said we aren't "ALL" as gullible as that. In fact, you're looking at only a fraction of the evangelical universe.

The gay marriage battle is pretty mainstream, not just the rubes, not even just the evangelicals, or the strictly religious. Even Mr. Obama, last Saturday night at Saddleback, firmly defined marriage as between one man and one woman. I suppose he's one of the intolerant enemy too, now? Well, I hope you'll be happy in the voting booth choosing Mr. Nader. :)

This is great. I'll look for some of these albums. It sounds like my kind of jazz -- even though I consider myself slightly more educated about the genre than you claim to be. (I at least attempt to play some Jobim bossa nova numbers on my guitar now. That's like putting your toe in the jazz water.)

I've heard Toots on many records, but not his own. He has that instantly identifiable perfect golden harmonica tone, like butter, or honey, or honey butter. Or something like that...

I wasn't sure I even wanted to take a nibble at this artist I've never heard. But when I read the name "Andy Chase" I knew I'd have to download some samples. Really, given Andy's work on the Brookville albums, I am convinced he should be producing in the big leagues.

Heck, listen to Zeppelin forward, you know R. Plant is of the devil! But don't you think he's seen the Light now, singing folk songs with sweet little ole' Alison Krauss?

But seriously, here in the Bible Belt we aren't all as gullible as that. Back in the era of back masking hysteria, being an audiophile and not wanting to damage my precious cartridge stylus, I hooked that devil music up to my 4-track reel to reel, then reversed the tape to hear for myself. Like I said, worry about what the music is about when spun the right direction. Just like a good conservative would -- the right direction. :)

I know the Religious Right is a source of endless amusement on this website -- the same function the religious left serves on talk radio. Both sides have their share of rubes, seeing eee-villl conspiracies where none exist.

Rock on, Brother Jon.

eric

Judging by the sound quality of McCartney's recent album, I wouldn't trust any statements he made about ProTools. I think John Vanderslice's article Pro Tools Mix Plus 24: Work of The Devil? (http://tinytelephone.com/html/tapeop.html) gives a balanced view from someone who works with tape and vinyl every day in his recording studio.

Michael Fremer is more biased -- definitely biased in favor of analog and vinyl -- but I have to say I have some sympathy for what he said about ProTools in his review of the latest Kathleen Edwards album:

"If this isn’t a ProTools recording I’ll eat a reel of Ampex 456 (that’s a cop-out because no one in their right mind would allow one to be destroyed). It has all of the dark, congealed, airless ProTools sonic fingerprints. ProTools sucks. It is an abomination. It is the musical equivalent of the burnt beans Starbucks passes off as gourmet coffee. It is the music business’s poison pill. It repels people who don’t even know they are being repelled. It is why people hardly listen to music anymore. They hear it but they don’t really listen. ProTools is literally unlistenable."

It's a sweet song. And a very sweet image.

I have a serious question to raise. My Dad died of cancer last year. We have had the "war on cancer" since Nixon. Hundreds of billions in research. Still, the odds are not really that good, comparing apples to apples. (Prevention is still the best cure, and if it gets to a certain stage before detection, your chances are not good. The treatments are often worse than the disease. In most situations, I myself would never take chemo, as I find little evidence that it will help that much more than it hurts, overall.)

Is there something wrong with our research paradigm, where all this effort is expended, and results seem so incremental and spotty?

I have another, kind of snotty question. Undoubtedly there are researchers in diabetes who have family members affected, and their motives are basically oriented toward solving this for their loved ones. There are cancer researchers who are primarily motivated by wanting to fix this disease for the sake of those in their family who have suffered from or are at high risk of cancer. But it looks to me as if most research is focused on patentable substances, and not at the whole range of substances that might be effective, even though some of them might not be profitable for some corporation. For example, I know several people who have survived cancer after receiving a death sentence from orthodox oncologists, who recovered using non-patentable regimes, supplements, substances, lifestyle and diet changes. My Dad first had cancer at 45. He died at age 81. He did not take any conventional cancer treatments, except surgery about two years before he died. I believe without those unconventional treatments, he could not have survived all those years. I believe conventional treatments would actually have shortened his life. I cannot prove this, but that is my best guess.

It seems as if medical research is concentrated in one area (vastly profitable schemes) and very little is being done to look at a larger universe of possible solutions. I don't know anything about CF research, but in cancer research there is very little thinking outside the box. No money in it. Also, there's something unseemly about the taxpayers and private donors funding basic research, used by persons/companies who develop a treatment, lock up the patent rights, and get all the rewards.

If a maverick does come up with a cheap cure (for example, the physicians who proved that a bacterium caused most ulcers, and a cheap antibiotic would fix the problem permanently), that will be fought, ignored, and resisted. Although the science has now been accepted, at the clinical level it is not fully implemented. Docs are as likely to write an Rx for Nexium as order a test for h. pylori bacterium.

I say this not to discourage anyone. But it is a little discouraging to me.

Scott, I wish every blessing for your son, that he may survive and thrive. Thank you for sharing the song and story.

I can't tell which part here is just humor and which part is serious. A USB turntable? Unless there's a product out there I haven't seen, those things are junk, judged by the rips I've been downloading from the internets. Vinyl rips from USB turntables will convince people that vinyl is complete hype, because they sound poor.

I would much prefer high definition digital to vinyl. But those formats just haven't caught on. MP3? It's a non-serious listening medium. Sample quality. And as more people embrace this format, it ruins sound quality for people who appreciate it, as producers mix albums to sound good in the compromised format.

Ah well, if you just want slam and bam and roar and sizzle, you're welcome to it. (Though frankly, MP3s don't even sizzle very well -- there is an inevitable softening and smearing of the high frequencies.) Vinyl has many problems, and I hardly buy it or play it anymore. But whenever I get out some of my old direct-to-disc or MFSL records and play them, or even the WAV files I've made from ripping them, my jaw just sort of drops, after months of listening to CDs and MP3s. There's no explanation for how a hard rock sliding down a plastic groove can sound that clean. But it does.

The biggest problem with vinyl is that it was hardly ever done right. The pressings were often poor, unless you bought imports, and even then the cutting engineers would cut too close to the center grooves.

But honestly, play the current CD release of Abbey Road, then play the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab vinyl, and then tell me there are no virtues in vinyl.

I can't disagree with your position that we have an oligarchy taking advantage of the majority here. But I don't care for the alternative class warfare that is suggested by the liberal half of the oligarchy, either -- through increasing taxes on corporations (who pass the burden onto customers and shareholders) and high-achieving individuals (who have committed no crime other than being successful).

Yes, it is time for change -- a kind of change that does not, thus far, appear to be on the horizon. Vote Republican. Vote Democrat. The economic problems most of us face have bipartisan roots. It is not likely that the perpetrators will magically turn into our saviors.

Gee, you're a real goodwill ambassador. It makes me proud to be an American. I'm surprised you didn't post Randy Newman's tribute to our oriental friends, Yellow Man.

Kay Hanley is currently singing backup for Hannah Montana. That's just wrong. Should be the other way around, if anything. I haven't heard Baby Doll. I liked Cherry Marmalade a lot though.

It was great to hear Colin Moulding again. I've been neglecting my XTC CDs. It's a shame he's given up on the music thing, last I heard. If Paul McCartney were alive today, he'd be writing songs like My Bird Performs. ;-)

I must be in the minority. I always went to a performance to hear a concert, not see an "event." If I can't hear the performance, it isn't a concert. The comment about clubbing a seal to death rings true -- I recall my worst concert experience ever: Weather Report at the Des Moines Civic Center. Unmitigated, undifferentiated noise. Jaco Pastorius playing Blackbird was about the only time one could differentiate bass from sax from keyboard. And that was only because it was a solo number. LOL.

Your review makes me grateful I can't attend concerts any more. I'm sure I would only hate myself in the morning.

Hmmm. No comments on here. So I'll only say that this intrigued me enough to add it to my Netflix queue. I'll give it a chance. That dude from 3rd Rock was also in 10 Things I Hate About You, which I liked.

You say the regs are silly. But I do not, to my knowledge, have a single HDMI compliant piece of equipment. No soup for me.

And the dictum, "No one has an unalienable right to movies," applies equally to folks clamoring for first run box office hits streamed to their home the day of release. It is difficult for you to get away for an evening to go to the cinema, granted. That's the price you pay in having a family.

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Who are we to argue with an esteemed philosopher like Mr. Spock? I believe the FCC has weighed the needs of the few and the many, and made the correct choice.

Umm, we're screwed to the wall no matter who wins. I only hope with McCain we will retain a few more freedoms. A few.

You think drilling and pumping our own oil instead of continuing to buy it from our foreign enemies for now and forever is not an idea that resonates with Americans??? You know that is not true. Yes, we need conservation measures, nuclear plants, renewable energy and many other strategies, too. McCain has endorsed those. Real ideas.

But the campaign is about Obama, because he is an issue. He may be THE issue. From Obama's Berlin speech: "The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." Except for the part about religious tolerance, this sounds like an invitation for the rest of the world to pick our pockets, for illegals to pick our pockets, for the weakening of national sovereignty and the pursuit of interests other than the USA's. If Obama wants to run for leadership in the EU, that's fine with me. It sounds very utopian, and I'm sorry, but most Americans have enough common sense to distrust utopians. (You could say the same about Bush's nutty utopian idea of bringing democracy to Iraq.)

And then you have to question the character of a guy who goes to Germany -- Germany of all places -- and apologizes for our conduct in the world. As if we must stand in shame before a Europe that created a massive slaughterhouse and dragged the rest of the world into it not once but twice in the past century?

All in all, I didn't think the speech was that offensive. However, it raises legitimate questions about who Barry Obama is, what his core values are, and where his true allegiance lays. Foreign policy victory it was not. Look at the polls. Slight bump, now evaporated.

I have no idea how all this will turn out. But if McCain is truly cowardly, then Obama should get on the same stage with him in a town hall meeting or a real debate (not the glorified press conferences we are used to, false called "debates") and challenge him on it, mano a mano. It's must happen sooner or later. Obama doesn't always do that well when he's unscripted. Maybe McCain doesn't either, not all the time, but at least he's had more practice.

I'd almost say One Trick Pony was Simon's finest. I've probably listened to it more than any other. Perhaps because it is a bit more jazzy than the rest.

The movie? Saw it in the theater. Saw it on video. Never want to see it again. It didn't totally fail, but it was slow, depressing, and ultimately pointless. How a great album can accompany such a lackluster film is very strange.

It appears that I'm older than y'all. Some biggies for me that I can recall: McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey; James Taylor - You've Got A Friend; some Carole King to go with the James Taylor - Sweet Seasons; Elton's Rocket Man; and to complete my white bread list The Carpenters - Superstar. Honorable mention for Joan Baez's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and America - A Horse With No Name.

There was some interesting stuff on that first America album. Little hint of the Muskrat Love and other horrors to come.

I love Big Bad Bill. Van Halen's version should be banished to the depths, IMO. Of course, I have owned Cooder's Jazz album since it came out. Around that time he played a bunch of tunes from that album with a good-sized band on a PBS show, possibly/probably Soundstage. I wish they would replay that one.

This is a reasonably good analysis, but it would be a mistake to conflate conservativism with the Republican Party as it now stands. At least at the leadership level, the GOP seems to be a power-seeking monster in a tissue of conservative wrapping. If they had actually followed a conservative course -- better enforcement of immigration laws, tax cuts and tax reform with corresponding restraint in spending, more skepticism toward grandiose regime-changing and nation-building wars, increasing freedom by resisting over-regulation -- I doubt they would be faced with such sorry political prospects.

The leaderships of both parties look to me more and more like the pissants and weasels who populate Rand's prophetic Atlas Shrugged. The wrapping paper is different, but the weaselly character is the same. The churches of liberalism and conservatism are both heavily populated by heretics and unbelievers.

Let's see now. Even though Clinton's administration set up extraordinary rendition to countries that torture, and is responsible for the deaths of perhaps as many as a half million Iraqi children from the sanctions ("it was worth it" says Albright), yet you praise the "good bombing" in the Bosnia-Serbia War and do not suggest saving a cell for Slick Willie in the Hague.

That's very interesting. And revealing.

I wonder if this recent Rasmussen poll observation is related: "In an automated survey of 1000 likely voters, Rasmussen found that 49 percent of respondents believed reporters would favor Obama in their coverage this fall, compared with just 14 percent who expected them to boost Sen. John McCain. The number of Americans who see pro-Obama bias in the press has increased by five percent in the last month. According to Rasmussen’s numbers, less than a quarter of voters – 24 percent – now trust the press to report on the election without bias. "

Well Jon, you should be a member in good standing with the mainstream media. You don't even need a secret handshake. Just show them your bias.