One of the many reasons you’ll never see me running as a candidate is that I can’t really bring myself to laud the Great American Electorate as all that smart.  I was always wavering on the issue, but 2004 settled it for me pretty well. So I’m easily pleased with little bright spots like this:
McCain’s association with George W. Bush is more damaging than Obama’s association with Wright.
The Jam – A Town Called Malice
Wet Wet Wet – Wishing I Was Lucky
The Housemartins – Caravan of Love
Arlington’s 12th Annual Neighborhood Day is tomorrow. The usual parade is starting from Courthouse this year (and looping up and around Clarendon) at 1pm. However, that’s not all that’s going on – there are events all over Arlington. Full schedule here.
This is how extraordinarily foul the military junta ruling Burma is:
The Asia head of the United Nations’ World Food Program said Friday that the government had seized the contents of two flights that arrived in the morning at Yangon which carried enough food for 95,000 people. They contained 38 tons of high-energy biscuits, medical kits and other items.
I suspect this will be temporary, as even a regime as repressive as this won’t be able to hold on long without some form of outside support.  And relief efforts, stymied as they are, continue:
Agencies such as the Red Cross, World Vision and Doctors Without Borders already had staff inside Myanmar before the cyclone hit, but have been struggling to get permission to bring in more, AP said.
And if the Bush Administration had ever had an ounce of sincerity behind its “promoting freedom and democracy” BS, the people of Burma wouldn’t be suffering like this today.
The news of Deborah Palfrey’s suicide struck me as terribly sad, last week.  I couldn’t quite describe why, but a recent article by Susannah Breslin captures it well. From one of the women she interviewed for the story:
“The first thing I thought about was the incredible isolation that both of them probably felt,” she said. “Because you’re doing something that’s perceived to be so morally wrong that you’re immediately outside society, as a prostitute or a madam. You’ve got this secret life or a compartmentalized life, and then to be pushed out there and villainized — I can only imagine the incredible isolation they must have felt.”
While the body of Deborah Palfrey was hanging from the rafters (her 76 year old mother was too frail to take her down), Palfrey client David Vitter was enjoying life as a United States Senator, having recently headlined a fundraiser with President Bush.
What the hell is wrong with us?
Golmaal. Somehow this worked its way into my top 25 playlist, according to iTunes, yet I have no idea what the lyrics are saying (which is probably just as well). Yet I could sing them for you on demand.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHchcodF5WM[/youtube]
t.A.T.u.’s Nas Ne Dogonyat. I should be embarrassed. But I’m not.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPm4y3s_58&feature=related[/youtube]
Finally, Stereo Total’s L’Amour A Trois (German version). Also available in French and English. I dig me some Stereo Total:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzHUbTohLWo[/youtube]
Bonus amateur recut of this video.
Aloha Airlines shut down earlier this week. As airlines go, it’s a pretty tiny one. 
So the shutdown won’t really impact anyone but its employees, suppliers, and whoever was recently booked on it. Still, I’m sad, because Aloha was the first airline I decided was *my* airline. They were the airline for my first flight that didn’t involve moving. They carried me and my dad from Oahu to Hawai’i, for a long father/son weekend on the Kona side of the island. To this day, I can still remember being unable to sleep the night before the trip, and repeatedly pulling out and looking at the tickets in excited anticipation. So that 70’s logo you see above is burned into my mind, and represents something that was nothing but good.
Aloha, Aloha Airlines.
What’s there to say? I wish I could write a positive piece. About the progress made, about the things we can do, about the hopes I have. But the past couple of months – of seeing national networks let Pat Buchanan pontificate on someone else’s racism, watching Marvin Arrington attacked for doing his best to help young black men, and hearing Lou Dobbs get upset about those “cotton pickin'” black leaders who dare object to his ignorant emanations – I’ve got nothing. Sorry.
So I’ll just link back to this, the groundbreaking for the national MLK, Jr. memorial in DC.
No, really. (NSFW)
I just realized that I missed my chance to see bike porn in DC last night (by about 30 minutes and 200 feet, it seems). So, in case any of you are in Richmond Thursday night, don’t miss your chance.
(Also, if any of you francophones want to ID the soundtrack to the linked video, I’d quite appreciate it).
When Michel Martin‘s “Tell Me More” show replaced the BBC News World Service on WAMU earlier this year, I was less than pleased. And after listening to her first couple of shows, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have the radio on in the background during her timeslot. But, over time, she’s either come into her own or I’ve just done a better job of listening – I now appreciate her as an excellent interviewer, and as someone who is unafraid of being direct on uncomfortable subjects.
Today, she took a few minutes to offer an unflinching and clear eyed observation on the chattering class’s claim that they would have stood up and walked out of Rev. Wright’s now infamous sermons. To wit:
I have had it up to here with members of the commentariat who keep lecturing us about how they would never have tolerated the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s more incendiary sermons, and they wonder why Barack Obama did. They would have walked on out [of the church].
Can I just tell you? I don’t think so.
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