Unless you were in college around 1975, you probably never heard the German version of Emerson Lake and Palmer, but Triumvirat's Spartacus is far better than anything ELP did. It's a concept album about a revolt against the Romans by a slave and gladiator named Spartacus, as in the movie with Kirk Douglas.
They didn't have a singer like Greg Lake or an organist who could match Keith Emerson, or a drummer like Carl Palmer. And to make matters worse, they were Germans (you can hear it in some of the mistakenly stressed syllables). But what they lacked in technical chops they made up for in an album that should be on everybody's must play list.
They had a couple other terrific albums; Illusions on a Double Dimple is also highly recommended.
I can't remember a song that started with a better hook. The "pow" about 12 seconds in is completely irresistable. The Moodys had some terrific intros: Ride My See Saw and You and Me are strong contenders.
If they had stayed together in the 1970s, I think they could have been a stadium band; they had a terrific catalog and when they reformed around 1978 they still could bring it. They just missed their wave, but at the top, they were as good as any band has ever been.
Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What’s wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha.
How dare Sarah Palin exercise her right to free speech! What kind of ordinary American attacks an politician on the Fifth of July for speaking her mind?
My take? For some of them it's nothing more than snobbery; the Mo Dowd, Andrew Sullivan, Tina Fey axis of weasels. She's not one of "us", they sniff. She went to five colleges in four years, whereas we went to Haavaad. She got married to a guy who's not in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman, or even a lawyer. She had five kids and didn't even have the decency to abort the "defective" one.
For most, it's that she's a traitor to her sex. Women are all supposed to vote Democrat, so therefore she's not really a woman. You saw similar reactions to Clarence Thomas (or indeed any black who happens to be a Republican). They're race traitors (as is Michelle Malkin; Filipinos are supposed to stick up for the Japanese).
And once the treason is revealed, who would feel the need to stick up for the traitor? Indeed at that point it's appropriate to express racism or sexism. Sarah is a bimbo; otherwise she'd been a Democrat, QED.
Lots of speculation that Sarahcuda's resignation as governor of Alaska scotches any remaining chance she had of gaining the GOP nomination in 2012 or later. The timing to me seems quite a bit off; she could have finished out most of her term, quitting midyear 2010 and devote the fall to helping GOP candidates for Congress (the Richard Nixon program from 1966). Now it seems just a little too early.
Departing with little or no warning, after about 30 months in office, is beyond surprising. I'm sure the Lieutenant Governor will do fine, but there's definately a sense of leaving with work unfinished and as her career was just beginning to take off.
I know we've heard a lot of chanting "Governor, it's time to resign," but we meant Mark Sanford.
If she's really bowing out of national politics, this pretty much clears the decks for Mitt Romney.
The sense that something is wrong with our food quickly blurs into the suggestion that everything is wrong with our food. It has too much bacteria but also too many pesticides. It is too expensive, but we do not spend enough money on it. We need fewer corporations, or maybe more corporations run by the yogurt guy. With so much wrong, it is hard to know where to start. And sometimes, in fact, it seems that fixing one problem would create another: Making fruits and vegetables cheaper, for instance, is hard to do if you also want them to be organic.
But despite its overwhelming complexity, "Food, Inc." joins "In Defense of Food," "Fast Food Nation," "Super Size Me" and dozens of other polemical books and films in the necessary effort to convince us that checking out at the supermarket is, on some level, a political act, with consequences for ourselves, our families and our world.
You can guess the point here; those who care about ourselves, our familes and our world (and who have nice disposable incomes) should pay more for food.
I swear, you'd think she was the President the way the media can't resist kicking her at every opportunity. Todd Purdum slants his article from the word go:
Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story.
If there was a disastrous performance, it was by the mainstream media in 2008, which is part of the reason they're in so much trouble these days financially.
The article is tendentious. The most unintentionally hilarious bit comes here:
More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
Yes, of course, lots of people have the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders lying around for convenient reference, and mention it commonly to traveling reporters. And how about a little pop psychology about the person who's actually the Vice President of the United States, and who's also a bully and an obnoxious jerk?
And then there's this:
What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life?
I dunno, what record of achievement in public life does President Obama have? Purdum's a hack writer and a liberal hired by Graydon Carter; for chrissakes his wife is Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for Bill Clinton. In fact, since Bill came up, I'll let him have the last word on Purdum:
"He's a really dishonest reporter," Clinton said during the tirade that followed, according to Fowler's report. "And I haven't read (the article). There's just five or six blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy."
Reminded that Purdum is married to his former press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Clinton responded in part: "That's all right - he's still a scumbag." The former president added: "He's just a dishonest guy - can't help it."
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.
