Gin and Zilbertronic

as much as sarah palin both terrifies me and fills me with loathing, there is a part of me that really enjoys this video

cheeeeesesteaks!

Maybe its just seeing the awkward woman tell her “the sandwiches are great” or seeing the hostess say “is that all, hon?” but somehow she seems more in her element, freak show oddity rather than running for president…

its been a full week, plus another 15-some hours, since the hurricane hit houston, and the last week has felt like a month.  i’m still without power, but today got the first sign of hope, as some of my friends finally got theirs back, so maybe by the end of the weekend it’ll be my turn.  i know and realize that my experience with this hurricane pales in comparison to so many people in texas, especially down in galveston, and even more so since i spend my days at rice, where there is power and everything is basically back to normal.  still, there is something shocking and mesmerizing about the way a city can just be shut down, and lives and businesses are put on hold.  there are areas of the city where an urban outfitters is open on one side of the street and the restaurant on the other side is still boarded up with signs in tatters.  supermarkets are open, but traffic lights are out.  some streets are clear, and some streets are still piled with trees and roofing.  i go home at night, light the 4 candles needed to light my apartment, and wait for an hour for my room to cool down, and try to decide if the shadows on the floor are leaves, knots, or cockroaches (no cockroaches yet!.  and this has become a routine at this point.  so many little things, like making myself coffee, drinking ice water, reading at night, standing in front of my ac at the end of the day, taking hot showers in the morning (well thats kind of a big deal) are disrupted.  not being able to cook for myself puts a serious hold on my psyche!  and well, things seem to move just a bit slower, maybe.  its been a month in houston but its felt like much more.

some interesting bands/blog i’ve been reading/listening:

Said the Gramophone – mp3 posts of some good, mostly not-too-obscure-but-interesting stuff

Foreign Born – a california band recommended by Grizzly Bear’s blog

Blogotheque – french people just have good musical taste

i don’t talk about politics too much, because, well, its like opening a dangerous well of emotion and frustration with no clear gain.

but this stuff has been burning on my mind, and as frustrating as politics can be, journalism, something i want to believe in at least a little bit, is suddenly as empty as i can remember.

what is scary to me is that the impression of the race you get from the media becomes more important than what is being said.  look at my position, as a student who pays a good deal of attention to politics, albeit through internet newspapers and blogs.  the story right now is that mccain has knocked obama down a notch, that the obama campaign is disoriented while the mccain campaign is sure-footed and surging.  Tom Friedman today wrote that Obama needs more energy and drive.  The problem in all this?  There is no context, and even less truth.

People don’t morph.  The Obama of today is not drastically different than a week ago or two weeks ago, just as McCain is the same person.  Yet the press presents changes in strategy or perception as drastic personality shifts.  Watch obama today and ask yourself if this guy is off-message, if he is wildly inarticulate and confused, and also, if you are hearing any of his message in the mainstream press?  

Now look at McCain’s new ad  See the pattern of lies and distortions that go beyond anything that happened before this last week.  Ask yourself why the story in the press is, as listed on CNN “Was ‘lipstick on a pig’ line an attack on Palin?” or other adventures in tactical maneuvering, and why there is no INVESTIGATIVE reporting that exposes tactics rather than reporting through them?

as for thomas friedman, who, sorry dad, i think is a total hack, your sense of obama’s wishiwashiness, felt through your gut (which just sounds way too much like you took it from colbert), what do you think of obama’s supposed reticence, mild-mannered nature, in the following quote?

“See, it would be funny, but the news media decided that would be the lead story yesterday. This happens every election cycle. Every four years, this is what we do. This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about…Enough!”

“These are serious times and they call for a serious debate…spare me all the phony outrage. Spare me all the phony talk about change.”

grizzly bear side-band: department of eagles

indietronica that somehow made it to my computer, although i recognize the name from andrew bird: dosh