Some advice: Dick Dale says… Steve Albini analysis (which you may have seen) You’ve been warned.

Holy shizzle. I never ever thought this was even remotely possible, but for 2:16 I respected Geraldo Rivera. In case you missed it, an illegal immigrant recently got drunk, got behind the wheel and killed a white girl in Virginia Beach. O’Reilly, predictably, tried to make it all about our Dirty Mexican Problem. But then, Jerry crawled up in his

sirpaulsbuddy plays an absolutely wicked game of connect-the-dots on our nation’s little over-testing problem over on DS08. I mean, surely Dubya’s hard-on for testing instead of teaching couldn’t have anything to do with his family’s decades-old relationship with a man named McGraw, could it? Must-read stuff….

Okay, I got no idea what Alanis Morissette is up to here. If she were an artist I have some respect for, I might buy that she’s offering a sobering feminist critique of the role women in popular play culture play in their own objectification. That’s certainly in line with what seems to be the consensus take, everywhere from the

I can only hope that there’s something wrong with how this story is being related. And I wish my knowledge of how schools work these days afforded me some reason to think it isn’t right. If there’s another side to the story, please let me know.

Our much-beloved senior senator from the state of Massachusetts is stumping for a massive No Child Left Untested Behind re-up, and we ought to all be screaming like Mary Jo Kopechne as the Oldsmobile weaves toward Dyke Bridge concerned. (More.)

One of the most pressing concerns I see in our educational system today is a basic one – some schools are dangerous places. Even where the threat of physical danger isn’t great, administrators and teachers are often asked to manage and warehouse disruptive students whose presence degrades the effectiveness of the teaching environment in ways that materially harm other students.

faith Pronunciation: /’fAth/ Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural faiths /’fAths, sometimes ‘fA[th]z/ Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust 1: belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact. 2: Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as

Tonight the World Series champion Cardinals will square off with the New York Metropolitans in the opening game of the 2007 baseball season. As America’s Pastime cranks up again, I’m confronted by a series of thoughts, issues, ponderments and concerns. 1. Will this be the year that pharmacology kills the game for good?

I’ve been laying at my computer crying with laughter for the past few minutes. It started yesterday with the Sad Kermit video spoofing Johnny Cash’s interpretation of NIN’s “Hurt,” which is maybe the most sublimely funny, twisted things in the history of YouTube. Today I realized there’s a Sad Kermit MySpace page. And there, in addition to the audio and

A guy over on one of the lists I sub to has raised the “what-if” question, which rolls around periodically in every music-related discussion group in the world: “What if X hadn’t died?” I’ve always heard these what-ifs and regarded them suspiciously. We just have too many examples of people who have gone to hell as their careers “matured.” Elton

Sometimes it doesn’t really require any additional comment. And now, the news. [Thx to ubertramp for passing this along.]

Sweet. Mother. Of Jesus. How the hell is a satirist supposed to make a living in a world where this is reality? [Thx: fikshun]

Seriously, this is a little more attitude than I need out of Vista.

I learned yesterday that there’s a new Graham Parker CD out. It’s called Don’t Tell Columbus. As is usually the case with GP, I had to have it. If you feel about music the way I do, you’ve probably developed a short list of artists who when they release something new, you automatically go buy it. Don’t need to hear