Remember how the other day I called your attention to Barack Obama’s little playground bully act re: Bolivian president Evo Morales’s flight? Uh-huh. Well, as it turns out, BarryO ain’t the only one who can send a message. Item: (Reuters) – Bolivia offered asylum on Saturday to former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, joining leftist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua
Read more
1: The enemy of my enemy Conservatives hate Obama. Progressives hate Obama. Hmmm. Let’s say that you and I and our mutual friend Bob are going to dinner. Bob is up for Mexican and suggests that we hit The Hacienda. I say no, The Hacienda sucks. Their chile verde is too hot. You say no, The Hacienda sucks. Their chile verde
Read moreBack in 2008 North Carolina – the state in which I was born, raised, and lived 32 years of my life – absolutely shocked me by voting for Barack Obama over John “The Maverick” McCain. Obama is hardly any kind of messiah figure, of course. But in symbolic terms, this was huge – North Carolina cast its electoral strength behind a
Read more
I’ve been thinking about the Paula Deen mess lately. As any number of previous posts here will suggest, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her or her kind. At the same time, I grew up in the racist South like she did, and I see the situation in more nuanced terms than do her critics these past few
Read moreBlues and Soul legend Bobby “Blue” Bland is dead at 83. S&R says goodbye with a couple of his classics… …and a most worthy tribute from Storyville.
Read more
Once upon a time the term “Pop” simply referred to popular music, and little effort was devoted to differentiating between styles. R&B, Rock & Roll, standards (Ol’ Blue Eyes and his ilk), Soul, whatever – it was all lumped together on AM radio and while you probably liked some things more than others, it was a mass media world and you
Read moreBack in February I declared V-LGBT Day, saying that “the battle for marriage equality is over.” There had been a lot of significant pro-equity activity, including a huge number of corporations and influential organizations coming down publicly against the Defense of Marriage Act and several prominent GOP defections from the homophobia camp. The last couple of days have seen two
Read more
The new CD from The Lost Patrol, Driven, was released on May 1, and I’ve just about played it to death ever since. This is their ninth album (I think – if there’s more I missed them and need copies asap) and there’s something a little uncanny about their ability to continue mining such a distinct sound without getting stale and
Read moreTunesDay usually happens on Tuesday, not Thursday. But the first video from the new self-titled Hot Nun CD was just released, so fuck the rules and roll the tape. Hot Nun is the latest project from Jeff Shelton, whom you may know from The Spinning Jennies and The Well Wishers (they’ve featured here at S&R a number of times). While
Read more
The Edward Snowden/NSA/PRISM uproar continues, and in the argument over whether or not he’s a Real American Patriot or your basic criminal vigilante the whole fucking point is getting lost. In fact, that argument is precisely the one that the Obama administration and the GOP’s security-state architects want us waging because it distracts us from the actual issue we need
Read more
Edward Snowden’s status has rapidly transformed from “anonymous consultant drone” to “popular hero,” hasn’t it? In an age of cheap convenience, bread and circuses, the complete cooption of government by the corporate elite and an unprecedented culture of political Newspeak, we’re used to people talking the talk. But a zombie apocalypse seems more likely than encountering someone actually walking the
Read more
The Susan Komen Foundation announced this past week that it’s slashing the number of cancer walks it stages in half. In a decision “not made lightly,” the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure announced Wednesday that it was canceling seven of its signature three-day fundraising walks next year. The decision comes about 18 months after the organization stoked considerable
Read morePresident Obama: President Barack Obama on Friday staunchly defended the sweeping U.S. government surveillance of Americans’ phone and internet activity, calling it a modest encroachment on privacy that was necessary to defend the United States from attack. Obama said the programs were “trade-offs” designed to strike a balance between privacy concerns and keeping Americans safe from terrorist attacks. Benjamin Franklin:
Read more[sigh]
Read moreA newly released report from the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University tells us some things we probably already know and some other things that ought to disturb us a little. Our good friend Dr. Lynn Schofield Clark, author of The Parent App, walks us through the main findings and offers some analysis in a post at Psychology Today, and it’s
Read more
lullaby pit 