Things you should read

In Michigan, Not Even the Dead are Safe
The Abstinence-Only Delusion
Squeezing Money from Iron
Still Can't Find Stupid Pretty White Girl; Still No One Cares
Bones of prehistoric camel found at Wal-Mart site
Pittsburghers are the best complainers...in song

Also, don't miss George Tenet ripping Cheney on 60 Minutes tonight, or Brady's Quinn's smug, smarmy mug looking pissed and bitchy all over ESPN. Cleveland is the best place for you, Brady.

sticky-icky

obligatory "the white stripes' new single is awesome" post.

The aptly-named "icky thump" (there is, indeed a lot of thump, in typical white stripes style. and it is, in fact icky, in that big-heavy-chords/a-little-bit-funky way) is all over the internets, and in a matter of time, it will be all over my mtv and radio too. The album, also called icky thump, comes out on june 19, but until then, you can download the single here (an XFM radio rip) or get it in much higher quality from iTunes for a measley 99 cents.

Detroit, represent. Will Jack White ever do something that I don't love? Signs point to no.

(also, apparently I can't figure out if I want to use capital letters or not. With any luck, that will resolve itself soon.)

Please note the renovations

New title, new look, news start on this here blog (uar? can I call it that? I might anyway.) Leave a comment if you're having issues viewing anything. Gray on black isn't hard for me to read, but I have eyes like a goddamn hawk.

Also, there's a nifty little article about pre-Iraq disinformation and its subsequent consequences over on Daily Kos. An excerpt:

So, the Office of Special Plans was whipped up in the Pentagon as an alternative branch of intelligence sure to generate the damn the facts, full speed ahead documents Bush and Cheney needed to get their war on. Feith, who had previously written an open letter to Bill Clinton calling for immediate war in Iraq, was only too happy to comply. He pulled out his editing pencil and struck down every point of evidence that contradicted the goal of going into Iraq.

Enjoy

see you later, innovator

arctic monkeys-brianstorm, as promised. this isn't them on jimmy kimmel, it's just the video. the dancers are pretty sweet.

the british are my favourite spellers

the arctic monkeys were just on jimmy kimmel, playing a song from their new album. favourite worst nightmare (note the british "u"). it was very cool and as soon as i find a youtube clip, i'll post it. it was very different from their first album, which i kind of liked but didn't rave about.

when a band releases a decent album or two, that are pretty generally well accepted, critically favored and moderately successful, there are two routes they can take. a band can: a) release a more poppy, palatable album that will probably make them more money or b) do something just a little weirder, a little cooler, a littler more evolutionary, that will make them a better band, but less successful. Please see: Weezer, Brand New, Radiohead, TV On the Radio, Jimmy Eat World (although I guess Clarity was their third album, and Radiohead didn't really hit their stride until Ok Computer either.)

back to the point. I suppose there is another route a band can take, which is to try to duplicate their first album and not really do anything. boring, but ok, i guess.

um, so this has been sarah's indie rock corner. we'll be back next week with how gun metaphors should be unilaterally banned for anyone wearing guy liner. (pete wentz, i am looking at you.)

I took all that I could, it was free

God damn it.

God damn it Hempfield.

This is what happens when a school board, drunk with power, commits to a $6 million dollar renovation and construction of a "field house" which I'm pretty sure we didn't need. Plus building a new stadium and instalilng astrotuff, all within the last ten years. For a football team that never wins.

That board isn't there any more, for the most part. They got ousted last year after firing a popular football coach. Again, football.

Now administrators want to cut funding for the arts and foreign language. Fewer classes, fewer teachers, less art.

I wouldn't give a damn, but I still have a small brother who has to survive his requisite four years in that suburban steel-and-razorwire shithole without losing his mind. If he's anything like me (and let's be honest, he is) he's going to need some way of coping with the bullshit that is high school. I could understand a modest arts cut, if the cut was unilateral— but no. No one is proposing cutting any funding or staff anywhere else, just arts and foreign language. That's stupid. Why single out the arts, just because educators are too narrow-minded to view them as anything but frivolity? I just wrote an outraged letter-I'm mailing it to the administration, the school board and the superintendent tonight.

Kids learn just as much in pottery class as they do in bio. Probably more, because they won't be sleeping through half of it.

seriously? a shrewdness?

something I wish I was in on: the naming of groups of animals.

I'm sure whoever came up with that was just all like "here's some random words. "pride" ok, that's what we're going to call lions now." some other pretty awesome ones.

apes-shrewdness
camel-flock
cobra-quiver
crow-murder
elk-gang
hippos-bloat
leopard-leap
mouse-mischeif
otter-romp
rattlesnake-rhumba
tiger-swift/ambush (this one is kind of scary)
toad-knot

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go feed a mischief of mice to my rhumba of rattlesnakes.

web comics

I like them.

Here are some things you may be interested in.

This is my favorite.
This one has lots of exclamation points.
This,
this
and this are pretty good too.
This one is kind of sad.
I periodically enjoy this, too.

Apparently, my fight song is based on a hymn called "Stand Up, Stand up for Jesus." Good call on that one.