Another wonderful facet to Wolfgangs Vault

The Crawdaddy Magazine

Read today:

-commentary on vinyl resurgence

-review of new Silver Jews record (yep, there's a new one!!!)

Great resource for distraction.

Colbert takes on Bill O'Reilly's vintage Inside Edition meltdown

Honestly, I think everything about this is hilarious.

Whoops!

A New York NBC News anchor drops the f-bomb live. Hardly the first time, but still - how do people keep making this mistake?

A little too morbid for my taste...

You've probably heard about the horrific earthquake that happened in China by now - thousands are estimated to have perished. CNN's coverage of this tragedy includes video footage - and I'm all for visuals, BUT is this really necessary?

"Watch as the death toll rises »"

Does anyone really want to watch as the death toll rises? This isn't primary coverage, these are dead people. CNN (and others!) - show some respect, eh?

John Edwards on Colbert Report

I never knew he was so funny! Please consider VP, John...



This episode was fantastic (and all of them were filmed at UPenn's Annenberg Center this week). Other highlights: Barack Obama puts "distractions" on notice and Hillary Clinton fixes a screen.

Colbert on the last debate

Polling

81% in Poll Say Nation Is on the Wrong Track

These results don't surprise me at all. What does, however, is the poor phrasing of the poll's choices.

81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

I believe your other choice is "generally going in the right direction". Are all those qualifiers necessary? Must we be so timid in our polling? Why wasn't it: America is heading in the ______ direction - check "right" or "wrong". Sometimes simpler is so much better. Instead, we have things that have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track. Ugh.

10th Anniversary of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

...and these guys made videos. Check 'em out.

http://www.tomatoes-radiowire.com/

I know this is going to come off as paranoid, but...

...there's some bad shit going on here. I can just feel it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBo4E77ZXo

Also, the miniseries John Adams is fantastic. How have we strayed so far from such noble ideals at the beginning, and a willingness to give up comfort, security, wealth, even life so that our children may have a better future? Maybe we have nothing to fight against. Maybe we're totally in control and Americans will live in freedom and prosperity for generations to come. But again, I just feel like something is wrong. But maybe that's just Paul Giamatti getting me in the mood for a revolution - believe me, it doesn't take much.

Google Bias

So, just out of curiosity - I wanted to see what images popped up first in a Google Images search of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Here is Hillary:

#1: the crazy b*tch shot

#2: The "what went wrong?" shot - including Bill, the Clintons seem to be your average happy hipsters of their day. What happened? p.s. Bill's beard is FANTASTIC.

Now for Obama.

#1: Senate mug shot, pretty standard

#2: Topless shot, yes, that's right. Topless shot.

Now, I know I'm not alone in thinking Obama is a handsome guy - he is! But hot enough to be sandwiched between Penelope Cruz and Hugh Jackman? I don't know...

Anyway, the search pretty much revealed what I expected. The media bias against Hillary (it's pretty obvious) does indeed transcend traditional media outlets. However, I should make it clear that although there's a media bias against Hillary (c'mon - she's old news, Barack is a shiny, happy new and very interesting face), it shouldn't change either the way she runs her campaign or the way the public votes. Haven't we become smart (or jaded) enough to realize there will always be media bias and that we should only count on ourselves for opinion? I mean - 8 years of Fox News later, you think something would have sunk in. Thus, is there a media bias against Hillary Clinton? Yes. Is it the reason for HC losing? Nah, sorry, don't buy it.

Colbert on Clinton

"But they were wrong about her [Hillary] being inevitable, right? She was not inevitable - she is unkillable. You cannot stop her. You chop off her head, she’ll crawl toward you. Now, I think, I think, you know, in these dangerous days, that might be what we need in a president."

I need to start watching The Colbert Report again. And as brilliant as Stephen is, the quality is much improved since the writer's strike ended. Hooray.

Recession for sure

Unfortunately, lots of bad news today:

Payrolls declined by 63,000 jobs.

Defaults on mortgages reached a historic high.

And Saturday Night Live is apparently back on the radar.

"'Saturday Night Live' has been in the news a lot lately, first for allegedly catering to Hillary Clinton's campaign with too-favorable skits and appearances, then for hiring Fred Armisen to portray Barack Obama even though Armisen is not black and, finally, for being cited as a catalyst - by way of a skit featuring fawning reporters asking Armisen/Obama softball questions - for tougher media coverage of the Illinois senator.

"To which we say: What? People are still watching 'Saturday Night Live'? Why? To kill time in a slow and unfunny manner? "

Also, see this post for some of the reasons I hate the entire "bitch is the new black" thing. Being a bitch is not a good thing! I find it absurd that I even need to type that. Remember, the origin of the word is a female dog - it's not exactly the type of description women should desire. And yes, I know it wasn't Hillary Clinton who invented the phrase, but one of her supporters - however, many of her [particularly female] supporters have embraced this motto. If another candidate appropriated a word into their campaign that applied to a specific demographic and had a negative origin, my guess is there would be a HUGE backlash. No matter how much I read, I still find it very hard to understand the Clinton campaign, particularly the feminist aspect, which she's been trying to play for all its worth. Hillary's campaign seems to alternate between accusing everyone else (the media, her opponents, the voters!) of misogyny and displaying it themselves. I cannot think of a better word to describe her entire campaign than "hypocritical".

Super cool.

The anti-Dowd

Gail Collins proves you can be a liberal female columnist, incorporate humor, and still sound like an intellectual human being - unlike Maureen Dowd who needs to stop writing and making women look like incompetent hacks. Gail Collins is not my favorite Times columnist, and maybe she's not as easy on the eyes as Dowd, but my goodness, she doesn't make me ashamed of my gender, and for that, I thank her.

*Just a small note, this is to contrast her with Maureen Dowd who I LOATHE. Loathe, loathe, loathe - for her ridiculous nicknames (Barry=Barack - what?!), weak arguments, false logic, and a million other wrongs. Women columnists are quite clearly in the newspaper minority, even in the liberal New York Times, and seeing Dowd alongside intimidatingly good columnists like Frank Rich and Paul Krugman makes my blood crawl. I'm not particularly inclined to be ashamed of my gender (I LOVE being a woman, truly) but the Dowd juxtaposition is too much to bear. It's like her role, in addition to being one of the token females, was to provide the "dumbed-down" column. It's disgusting. At least Coulter had the decency to be on the other side (politically) - Dowd supposedly represents my views. BLECH.