What’s cooler than being cool? Boston last week. The worst it got was 9 below, 32 below if you count the wind chill. Yeah, it was damn, damn cold. My mom tells me that when I lived in Maine, it once hit 50 below with the wind chill, mid 20’s without. So 32 below the point ain’t no thing for a cold-blooded guy like myself. It’s up to a balmy positive 16, wind chill of 4 right now. I went running in a T-shirt and shorts it was so warm, relatively. No joke.Guess who’s 20 now? Yay! Shit, twenty years from now, I’m gonna be owning continents. True. You have to understand that such braggadocio comes from a guy who, halfway back in life at age 10, invented the month of Kevember and remade the calendar putting Kevember in between June and July. Not only that, but I made the 12 old months have 28 days and gave Kevember 29 cuz it was the most special of them all. Was I cut out to be an evil dictator or what? Don’t even ask about the city of Kevinsville.
Since we’re on the topic of Kevin and today in MLK Day, get this: MLK’s real birthday is on January 15 and I was born near noon on the 14th. If I would have been born a day later, I would have been named Martin. White kid born in the ‘hood named Martin? I told you it don’t get mo’ ghetto than this, hehe.
Hey Al-lah, Hey Allah! Hide it, Hide it, Hide it, oh oh. Comic genius.
So on today, the first day of Election Season 2004 (insert fancy news network graphic here), it’s time for the official Cure 2004 Endorsement. I’m going, although with some reservations, with Gen. Wesley Clark.
Clark is the best candidate running, Republican or Democrat. He has tremendously broad support (he’s moderate enough that some like Howard Dean have called him a Republican in disguise, but appealing enough to the democratic base that he has the endorsement of both Michael Moore and George McGovern; strange world, innit?). He is a former NATO Commander with a history of diplomatically working with our allies around the world, organizing coalitions, speaking tactfully and deeply understanding security issues. He is hawkish in his liberal internationalism, pressing for using the US Military on humanitarian missions when grave disasters might result, such as in Kosovo and Bosnia. He would follow the Powell Doctrine of using US force only when we can guarantee victory, only when we have the support of the American people and only when we have a clear exit strategy. He understands that the problems the US has with terrorism from the Moslem world are grave, and must be dealt with accordingly.
Domestically, he is a Washington outsider who is clearly nonpartisan. One of his senior strategists worked on the campaign of John McCain, a Republican. He has no longstanding ties to big business or big NGOs who could exert undue influence. He is fiscally responsible, calling for decreasing the deficit through a combination of program cuts and tax increases. He is a pragmatic environmentalist and understands the tradeoffs between environmentalism and growth. He supports free trade, the FTAA and NAFTA. He supports increasing the minimum wage in a way that is consistent with the minimum wage earlier in US history and would not cause major unemployment. He is intelligent, having been selected as a Rhodes Scholar and graduation first in his class at West Point. He does not support litmus tests of any kind for judges, but believes judges should be selected and promoted based on how justly they examine the law, not how strongly their opinions correlate with those of the president. He support civil rights and Constitutional rights.
General Clark is the top candidate for the presidency in 2004. I’m a registered independent, so I won’t be voting in the Democratic primary, but I urge you, if you are a democrat, to cast your ballot for Clark.
The Boston Globe had an editorial on Friedrich Hayek, calling him the best 20th century philosopher you don’t know, which made my friends here laugh because, among libertarians, Hayek is the man. Beyond the best defense of individual liberty since JS Mill in his “Road to Serfdom”, though, Hayek made significant developments in many others branches of philosophy. Good to see him get a little respect from the Globe; check out the link if you’re interested in reading a bit about him.
Bill Clinton as the next Jimmy Carter? Almost everyone agrees that Jimmy Carter was a bit too weak and indecisive to serve effectively as President, but his post-Presidency has been masterful, including helping defuse a terrible crisis in Haiti with Colin Powell and working tirelessly for human rights around the globe. Now, Ralph Peters, a mighty conservative commentator in the mighty conservative New York Post says that Clinton is becoming the next great international spokesman (though his presidency was, of course, much better than Carter’s). Clinton never takes cheap political shots when he’s overseas, is a great public speaker, and clearly elucidates US policies that seem strange outside the States. Good for him.
Speaking of conservative, do any of my peeps at U of O Honors have a Professor Cogan? He has this hilarious article in Front Page Magazine where he basically rails on about some of the more ridiculous aspects of the far left that can be found at U of O. I wouldn’t post this except that he’s dead on when he talks about downtown Eugene: “That the social engineer is able to see The Big Picture much more clearly than selfish individuals and so builds a “community space” or a downtown mall that is unusable except by the homeless, the druggies, and an occasional pure-hearted leftist.” Ahh, Eugene.
The Harvard Lampoon, a comedy newspaper over at Harvard, on college essays. I hate these. Who cares about the Life Changing Experience you had when you were 8 and the Values and Honor that it taught you - colleges must know that it’s one in a hundred who have anything to say for these fluff pieces. Can’t I just write what I’ve done, what I want to do and why your college/internship/law school is the best place to accomplish this?
Last thing: Have you heard about this book called “The Rise of the Creative Class”? A professor wrote a book a few years ago that claims that cities should encourage bohemians and other creative types by doing things like holding diversity days and street parades and the like, not because street parades are cool but because this “Creative Class” is good for a city’s economy because they tend to start fast growing businesses and capitalize on new business trends faster than other people. Tons of cities, from Pittsburgh to Boston to Eugene, are being influenced by this idea. The problem? It’s not true. Cities like Las Vegas and Grand Rapids, which are creative wastelands by the professor’s ratings, have turned out to be some of the fastest growing places in America the last few years. Cities like New York and San Fran, at the top of the creative tables? If you don’t immigration, they’ve not only grown slower economically than the rest of the country, but they’ve also lost 650,000 residents. Sounds like a model city to me.
(P.S.: I put up some new photos. The road is from Eugene, and the other three are in Boston. I raced at like 80 m.p.h. on some back roads towards Crow to try and catch a good sunset at this spot that I’ve been meaning to grab some pics from, but I just missed it and had to use some Photoshop tricks to get the sky constrast correct. I used some new saturation tricks on the picture of the willow-like tree; colors look good?)
Prime Cuts
“Rosas” by La Oreja de Van Gogh
Juanes-style latin rock with some electronic instruments. They also slipped in an almost-techno “Bonus Track” by La Oreja de Van Gogh. You should also check out La Oreja de Van Gogh’s “Puedes Contar Conmigo”.“Harder Better Faster Stronger (Neptunes Remix)” by Daft Punk
Dope chillout track, with Pharrell laying down some voice in the middle of Daft Punk. The “Daft Punk Neptunes” back and forth chant will get stuck in your head. “Slow Jamz” by Kayne West ft/ Twista and Jamie Foxx is notable for lines like “I’m a bring the Cool Whip / Then I want you to strip” and “I’m a play this Vandross / You gon’ take your pants off” plus Twista drops some sweet flow halfway through. “Gone” and “NYE in Your Motherfuckin’ Face Mon” by Kilowatts are tight new synthpop from KW. The New Years’ song is a classic version of Auld Lang Syne all techno’d up; it’s dope.
