The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, where researchers have tracked network news content for two decades, found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
You read it right: tougher on the Democrat.
During the evening news, the majority of statements from reporters and anchors on all three networks are neutral, the center found. And when network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative, according to the Washington-based media center.
By Patrick Appel A surfer may have done Einstein one better:
A few weeks ago, Lisi posted an academic paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" to arxiv.org, a site for scientists that’s maintained by Cornell University. The paper outlined his attempt at a theory that would lay out the physics of the universe in one tidy package. For half a century, researchers have sought to reconcile gravity with the three forces that operate inside atoms, where gravity seems to hold no sway. No one—not even Einstein, who spent the later years of his life trying—has been able to explain how these four forces can coexist.
To understand fully Lisi’s own stab at the problem requires a grasp of mathematics far beyond all but a handful of people, but the basic premise is that all physical forces and particles can be explained by mapping them onto an incredibly complex geometrical structure known as E8. If Lisi is right, his theory would give an elegant shape to the physics of the cosmos, and E8 would become as significant as E=MC2. This would be a remarkable feat coming from any of the most accomplished physicists alive. Coming from a surf bum, it would be beyond extraordinary.
Cheap Seats, The Cincinnati Gardens, Professional Basketball, 1959 by William Matthews
The less we paid, the more we climbed. Tendrils of smoke lazed just as high and hung there, blue, particulate, the opposite of dew. We saw the whole court from up there. Few girls had come, few wives, numerous boys in molt like me. Our heroes leapt and surged and looped and two nights out of three, like us, they’d lose. But "like us" is wrong: we had no result three nights out of three: so we had heroes. And "we" is wrong, for I knew none by name among that hazy company unless I brought her with me. This was loneliness with noise, unlike the kind I had at home with no clock running down, and mirrors.
By Patrick Appel Reihan offers some brief thoughts on Maliki and the presidential race:
…if you believe that Colin Kahl is carefully signaling foreign policy elites, and I do, the debate between McCain and Obama over Iraq is increasingly about 80,000 vs. 50,000, not 180,000 vs. 0. Given that Maliki has to demonstrate his nationalist bona fides, an Obama victory is a better-than-acceptable outcome from his perspective. And by building trust with the Obama camp, he can restrain any impulse on Obama’s part to push for rapid withdrawal. We have every reason to believe that the partisan temperature of the Iraq debate will sharply decrease if Obama wins. Assuming Obama doesn’t win a landslide — he won’t — Democrats will be disciplined, including the MoveOn Democrats Chris Hayes profiled. Why? Because they want to win, and they’ll be more exercised by the Kulturkampf that an Obama victory will likely set off.
by Chris Bodenner Many people consider my favorite musician, Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk), no musician at all. In fact, certain stuffed shirts want to prosecute him for what he does. That's because Girl Talk creates mash-ups: tracks that blend samples from other artists, usually without permission. Mash-ups began as novelties, and most are just clever combinations of two songs. But on his last album alone, Girl Talk sampled nearly 300 different songs (up to 26/track), spanning hip hop, indie rock, dance pop, and dozens of subgenres. His more creative combinations include: the lyrics of Notorious B.I.G. over Elton John's "Tiny Dancer," rapper Drama over Roy Orbison's "You Got It," hip-hop duo Clipse over Grizzly Bears' indie hit "The Knife." His albums are a seamless string of frenzied dance tracks. At his live shows, the skinny, pasty, ex-engineer flails around with his fans and ultimately leaves in boxers. (For a fuller profile, see this piece I wrote last year.)
Girl Talk just released his newest album, Feed The Animals. In the spirit of open source (and following the lead of Radiohead's Rainbows), he put the album online as a "pay what you can" download. It's not quite the masterpiece of its predecessor, Night Ripper, but pretty damn close. Recently, fans have started to adapt Girl Talk tracks into music videos, splicing together snippets from sampled originals found on YouTube. This one is truly brilliant (the intro blends '60s British prog rock and Dirty South rap, and you can't miss the scenes from "Footloose" at 3:25):
Girl Talk embodies the Millennial Generation like no other artist. An archaeologist from the future could find no greater musical artifact than Night Ripper or Feed The Animals, which feature music from the 80s (new wave, gangsta rap), 90s (grunge, Dirty South) and 00s (emo, crunk). Much of the fun is recognizing songs you haven't heard since middle school. But his albums aren't just nostalgic soundtracks; their ingenuous genre-blending makes them far greater than the sum of their parts. And Girl Talk would hardly have been possible without the generation-defining Internet. Online file-sharing allowed him to get almost any song for free. Editing software on his laptop (which he uses at live shows) allowed him to splice and dice music without the need for expensive studio equipment. And of course blogs and websites made word-of-mouth and distribution far easier for an amateur with a day job.
Also, I can't help but notice parallels between his music and the cultural atmosphere surrounding Obama. At age 46, Obama certainly isn't a Millennial. But his campaign – buoyed by young fans and volunteers – embodies that generation in so many ways, as does Girl Talk. Obama is a young, diverse, and unique politician running an innovative, grassroots campaign that thrives offs the Internet. Similarly, Girl Talk is a young, innovative, Internet-based artist whose level of sampling is unique and incredibly diverse — racially and stylistically. And both Obama and Gillis draw from the same demographics: African-Americans and young liberal whites. Plus, they both put on killer live shows. (Incidentally, nearly half of the songs on Obama's iPod – including Jay-Z, Elton John, and the Stones – are sampled on the last two Girl Talk albums.)
Finally, I can't help but recall a great essay Reihan wrote on "rickrolling" – when someone booby-traps a link directed to the music video for Rick Astley's 1987 hit song, "Never Gonna Give You Up." In a critique of that video, he wrote:
His skin is a ghostly white…. And although he is pale and British, he sounds … black and American. … Astley could be condemned for appropriating a primarily black form of musical expression. But not only was he not condemned — he was embraced by music-lovers of all colors…. The earnestness and lack of self-consciousness contrasts with the paralyzing cynicism of our own time. What we're seeing is the promise of a post-racial future, in which color distinctions melt away in the white heat (so to speak) of Astley's soulful vocals. Could it be that Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' is the soundtrack for the Age of Obama?
Not to totally ape Reihan, but could it be that Girl Talk is the artist for the Age of Obama? Like Astley, Gillis is a pale, geeky white guy (Gillis was a biomedical engineer, after all). Yet his grasp on hip-hop – the genre that dominates his sound – and his ability to weave it through disparate subgenres – namely indie rock – is remarkable. Oh, and "Never Gonna Give You Up" is featured on the 7th track of Feed The Animals, so you get RickRolled every time you listen.
I feel that there is one point about theMyersaffair which is not being made clearly and often enough: that is, Myers was not merely attempting to provoke the ire of Catholics. Out of context, what Myers did with the cracker – I am among those who believes that’s all it is – may seem strange, unnecessary, even hateful. Were he simply desecrating a religious symbol for the sake of desecrating a religious symbol, perhaps a case could be reasonably made that he was crossing a line. (Though, and I think you would agree, it would still not be reasonable to attempt to have him fired, to make threats against him, and make threats against his family – all of which Catholics have done in response.)
However, in context, Myers’ actions are entirely justified, and quite appropriate to the situation.
Remember, Myers did not simply wake up one day and decide that he wanted to provoke Catholics. Rather, he was reacting in an entirely reasonable way to an absurd situation. Poor Webster Cook, whose crime was nothing greater than failing to ingest his wafer, was put through hell for what he did. He received threats of violence and threats against his life, and he now faces censure, even expulsion from his university. And it is against the backdrop of this mindless bigotry and fanaticism that Myers decided he had to act. He was not acting out of bigotry, but in response to it. His point is one that needed to be made – simply put, that Catholics (and Muslims, and Jews, and Hindus, and any other faction, sect or group) do not have the right to impose their views on the rest of us, particularly those of us who find such views utterly irreconcilable with the facts of the world in which we live, and choose to say so. Had those Catholic fanatics simply left that poor kid alone, I guarantee you that it would never have even occurred to Myers to do what he did. But they didn’t leave him alone; they insisted on demonstrating just how little progress Catholicism has actually made – and Myers was happy to point this out. The simple fact that they tried to tell him he’s not allowed to do what he did is reason enough for him to do it. There’s a say, "Any book worth burning is a book worth reading." The same principle applies here: any speech that is banned is speech that must be said, and any expression (provided it’s non-violent) not permitted is an expression which must be made – simply to make the point that this is a free society, and such restrictions cannot be allowed to stand.
That bears repeating: this is not the middle east; this is not the middle ages. This is a free society. And in a free society, there exists no right to not be offended. If the Catholic church can get away with desecrating what others consider sacred (or, for those of us who have no concept of sacredness, at least special) – if they can call a loving union between two gay men or women an "abomination", if they can call the union into which I hope to enter someday a "perversion", then damn it, I reserve the right to desecrate what they consider sacred also. Respect is a two-way street – if they want my respect, they must give me theirs. If they want Myers to respect them, they must also respect him (and Mr. Cook for that matter). But this is something of which religion in general seems incapable – they always want respect, but reserve the right to give none in return.
by Chris Bodenner Vanity Fair launches a gay car blog:
A car’s gayness—like gayness in general—is based in its inhabiting the margins of conventionality. A Gay Car is quirkier, more enigmatic, or more fiercely accessorized than the average vehicle. (It also likes to sleep with other Gay Cars.)
by Chris Bodenner "[McCain’s newest attack ad] is sequel of sorts to the "Pump" ad from a few days ago suggesting that Obama uniquely was somehow to blame for soaring gas prices; anyone who believes that will, I guess, also believe that he’d torpedo a visit to see wounded troops because there’d be no flashbulbs popping in his face. Not only does that not fit the facts — he left his pool reporters outside when he visited Walter Reed a few weeks ago, and as I noted last night, his spokesman says the plan at Landstuhl was to keep the press on the plane — but even under the worst assumptions, it makes no sense. If you think (and I do not) that Obama’s a sociopath who sees wounded soldiers as nothing but political chips to be played in an election card game, surely we can agree that he’s nevertheless savvy enough to grasp how horribly bad it would look to have photographers with him on a hospital visit in the middle of a campaign. If there were pictures on the wires of him shaking hands with bedridden vets while media vultures crowded around for close-ups, conservatives would have ripped him for it properly and mercilessly and he knows it. Why not stick with the ‘he went to the gym but not the hospital’ point, which is at least factually correct? Why go here?," – Allahpundit.
I predict these nasty, petty, and desperate attacks will only grow as Obama soars into November. What else does McCain have to run on? It’s the same approach Clinton took after Feb. 5: if I can’t beat him, I’ll drag him down to my level and hope he hits back, besmirching his image as a "new politician." It wasn’t exactly a winning strategy.
In 2001 Brooke Allen wrote in praise of the big-box book store:
Although there is some reality in the image of the chains as predators (ours is a capitalist economy, after all), it is not the whole truth or even, perhaps, the most important part. The emotional drive behind the anti-chain crusade is an understandable mistrust of big corporations allied with the knee-jerk snobbery that is never far from the surface in American cultural life. "I am a reader," the interior litany goes, "therefore I belong to a privileged minority; I patronize exclusive bookstores known only to me and my intellectual peers." With the chains, which target a wider public and make the process of book buying unthreatening to the relatively less educated, the exclusivity factor disappears.[…]
Wonderful though many of the independents were (and are)…the fact is that most of the good ones were clustered in the big cities, leaving a sad gap in America’s smaller cities and suburbs—the places, in fact, where most of the American population actually lives. Books-A-Million’s 202 stores, for instance, are almost all located in the Southeast. Borders has from the beginning targeted another underserved market, the suburbs, and as a result the quality of life in American suburbia has radically changed over the past decade. This is a point that the urban intelligentsia, which loves to characterize the suburbs as a cultural wasteland, seems to have missed, or at least to have taken no interest in.
In a very basic level, modern hero stories explore a simple question: What would happen if human beings could do X? X, in this context, can mean anything from fly to shapeshift to lift trains to build mutation enhancers. In a way, it’s simply an extension of the basic question of movies: What would happen if human beings were smarter and prettier and had better dialogue than they actually do? Well, one of the things that happens is that more people want to watch them go about their days. And that’s turning out to be even truer when it comes to people who are smarter and prettier and have better dialogue and can fly. What we’re finding from the superhero movies is that the action sequences are actually the least interesting. The fights in Batman were significantly less riveting than simply watching a sociopath like the Joker conduct his business. The climactic battle in Iron Man wasn’t half as gripping as watching Tony Stark fly for the first time. The hospital scene in Hancock was basically an afterthought, and nowhere near as interesting as the scenes where Hancock awoke, drunk and lonesome, on a park bench. The epic clashes, in other words, have been far worse than the mundane scenes that preceded them.
The Dish 