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Website of the Week
For those who are gluttons for listening punishment, here is my official myspace musician page.
Local Pump Price of Unleaded Gasoline:
$3.52/gallon
Price Per Barrel of Oil:
$125.96 (previously $107.90)
last modified May 11, 2008 at 18:16
Just for the sheer corniness of it and because all the bad news and cynicism are wayyyy overreported, I thought that I'd answer that question on behalf of various industries and businesses.
How's business?
Funeral Home: "We've made a killing."
Plant Nursery: "Growing all the time."
Waste Disposal: "It stinks, but it's picking up." (stole that one from Gator Waste Disposal in N.O.)
Cutlery Store: "Not so good. We've had to cut our staff and really slash prices."
Shoe store: "Running smoothly."
Grocery Store: "Great. Our customers are really hungry for our products."
Apparel Store: "Awful. Sales have been wearing thin lately. We've really had to tighten our belts."
Pet Store: "It depends. Some days everything is going to the birds. On others, we eat like lions."
Restaurants: "Rising costs continue to eat into our profits."
That's what I did when I read the marquee at the local Sonic:
Lenten Combo
Last Friday, after much anxious waiting and fretting, I finally received my two Shins cd's in the mail(Thank you, Niles): Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World. They are highly enjoyable, just as I suspected, and are growing more on me each day, just as I had hoped.
Because I am too lazy to think of adjectives and colorful ways of describing their music, I recommend reading some reviews here and here and, oh yes, here. Well, heck, just go here.
Here's their song "Young Pilgrims", one of my faves.
A cold and wet November dawn
And there are no barking sparrows
Just emptiness to dwell upon
I fell into a winter slide
And ended up the kind of who goes down chutes too narrow
Just eking out my measly pies
But I learned fast how to
Keep my head up cause I
Know I've got this side of me that
Wants to grab the
Yoke from the pilot
And fly the whole mess into the sea
Another slow train to the coast
Some brand new gory art from way on high
I sink and then I swim all night
I watch the ice melt on the glass
While the eloquent young pilgrims pass
And leave behind their trail
Imploring us not to fail
Or course I was raised to
Gather courage from
Those lofty tales so
Tried and true and
If you're able
I'd suggest it cuz this
Modern thought can get the best of you
This rather simple epitaph
Can save your hide from your falling mind
Fate isn't what you're up against
There's no design
No flaws to find
But I learned fast how to
Keep my head up cause I
Know I've got this side of me that
Wants to grab the
Yoke from the pilot
And fly the whole mess into the sea
Okay, hockey fans, the time has come to give it up. The rest of the world has endured your optimistic dreaming of a salvaged NHL hockey season long enough, but... it's over. Move on with your lives, people. Spend the time you would have wasted sitting at the matches or in front of the tube doing useful things, such as volunteering with youth hockey leagues or lobbying Washington for stiffer "highsticking" penalties.
Better yet, work on ways to make hockey exciting to watch. I would suggest making the puck much larger and changing its shape to oval. Lose the skates and hockey sticks, while you're at it. By the way, you might want to change the puck to leather. You can keep the ice and the fighting.
The Weekly Standard's Irwin M. Stelzer has written an excellent article entitled "The Axis of Oil" that details how China and Russia are positioning themselves against the United States in their quest for economic and political power.
Today, China is the world's leading consumer of oil due to the significant growth of its manufacturing industries and the growing middle-class. Because of this, China has demand power. Despite US trade sanctions, China has made several long-term deals with Iran for some of its vast oil production. One wonders what China might have that Iran covets? China has also made deals with Venezuala and Canada, two major US oil suppliers.
Their neighbor Russia is on the opposite end of the economic spectrum and uses its oil supply power to leverage its political power against the United States. Russian has made key supply deals with Germany and Japan. This might explain Germany's reluctance to join the US in Iraq and put at risk their relations with their strategic economic partner.
No doubt, these alliances are just a few patches in the cobweb that is the geopolitical landscape of the oil power brokers. I don't doubt that this power struggle for access to oil plays at least a small part in our interest in the Middle East. I don't think that oil was the main reason that we went into Iraq, but I believe it was definitely an attractive side benefit.
Stelzer establishes an important perspective and paradigm for our understanding of the politics of oil today.
Kathleen has posted a good one up on her blog.
The Crutch has an interesting interview with James Mercer and Dave Hernandez of The Shins. The topic that seems to come up the most often in their interviews is the idea that they are somehow selling out their indie fans by embracing business ventures such as contributing the music to McDonald's and Gap commercials or, quite simply, by making money and becoming a popular group. (caution: there are a couple incidences of strong language in the interview)
Yeah, it's not like you're basketball players raking in millions, right? Just scratching out a living.
Mercer: I'm a more pragmatic person, and hypercritical of hippie philosophy and ideals. None of it sells well with me. People think that once music is heard by other ears, it's corrupted or something.
And I can't imagine anyone would say something so absurd out loud, but that does seem to be the psychology behind it.
Mercer: The thing that's interesting to me is that there's no battling it. If you decide to license your stuff, you're going to get s*** for it, and no defense will keep you cool in some peoples' eyes. You kind of make a decision and have to live with it.
Not that you should worry about what those people think, it's just an interesting cultural phenomenon to look at.
Mercer: As a generation, we're struggling with wanting to feel authentic. We want to be real people, we feel fake. I was having a conversation with somebody who said they were so pissed that there was a burger king in Paris. It seems to me that what really pisses off some Americans about things like that is that we want to go to Paris and feel as if we're in "gay paree," and have an authentic experience. When in reality, Parisians are modern people who want to make money and have a normal life, there are entrepreneurs and stuff like that, but somehow it ruins it for us. I mean, it does it for me too.
Sure, we all want to leave the country and feel like there are still untainted places to go. I think that given the dearth of true authenticity, we look for the trappings of authenticity instead, which in music involves low production value, nobody having heard of you . . .
Mercer: Poverty!
Jonah Goldberg, from NRO, quips:
...Obviously Team America needs to rescue our captured doll. Never leave a toy behind!
Did someone say 'terrorist problem involving the kidnapping of a toy American soldier'?
Team America's on it!
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