Happy MLK Day!
let freedom ring.
State Politics meets THE FUTURE!!!
I started working at the State Capitol in the House of Representatives recently as a Legislative Aide. 
A pretty sweet office if i do say so myself. And it has recently come to my attention that the House of Representatives will be broadcasting all of the chamber meetings on streaming audio (weekdays from 9am - whenever they're done), television coverage (Comcast Channel 165) and online streaming video (link coming soon).
All of this has got me thinking: I personally watch a ton of C-SPAN, but that's because i'm a huge politics dork, and it's typically broadcasting national news, something the polity at large should be is probably interested in to a decent degree.
But will Coloradoans actually watch these proceedings? Those chumps in the Senate don't have camera crews, a television channel, or anything like that (though you can listen to their boring lame streaming audio of their unimportant and trite proceedings through the link above, if you're a square who's into those sort of things, that is).
But we're bringing TECHNOLOGY to the political process. Many of the Representatives don't even use computers, in fact, this is the first year that they're allowing Aides and interns to use the wireless network in the Capitol; so I ask you, are today's politics behind the curve of modern technology (yes!)
One of the other hats i wear has me tutoring students at Kaplan for various standardized tests, from the SAT, ACT, down to the ISEE. When we scan their tests through the machine, it is RARE AS HELL that we have any errors whatsoever, but the State of Colorado can't even get their voting machines certified!!!
This has led to a scandal here in the Rocky Mountain Empire where our Secretary of State Mike Coffman:
won't certify any voting machines in the state, unless they're manufactured by a company called Premier Electronic Solutions (who shares a PR firm with Coffman's former campaign...FISHY!)
Remember Diebold voting machines? Those screw-ups who were responsible for that whole Florida thing in the year 2000?
So the question remains: Are we sure that politics is ready for this newfangled technology, or can we (PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD) just stick to paper ballots where the voter knows exactly what he or she is choosing, and can have a paper trail to prove it if need be during any recounts?
I, for one, am excited about the live broadcasting of House meetings, but I'll be sitting there every day watching it happen, will any one out there be tuning in to watch us, or is this a giant waste of money?
Podcast Review: Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (NPR)
in today's extremely odd political climate, more and more people are seemingly more informed about politics due to the proliferation of information on the internet, particularly via the avenues of podcasts, message boards, and of all things, youtube.
it used to be the case that people who read newspapers were decently informed, then it turned out that this was more often the case than not:
okay, that's fine, there's enough information out there so that we can all self educate, right? Well, wikipedia is trash, political blogs are deeply slanted, talk radio is generally full of propaganda, and the televised debates are one folding chair away from being a WWF match.
(look, it's THEROCK Obama, ha!)
so where do most people get their news today? COMEDIANS!
i'm not going to keep riffing on how ridiculous this is
because it is ridiculous.
however, if you're one of the millions that stays informed about politics from comedy:
wait, wait, don't tell me is for you.
host Peter Segal and announcer Carl Kasell along with a rotating cast of comedians and journalists bring you the week's news with a twist.
it's a game show!
Roy Blunt Jr., Tom Bodett, Amy Dickenson, Adam Felber, Kyrie O'Connor, P.J. O'Rourke, Charles Pierce, Paula Poundstone, Roxanne Roberts, and Mo Rocca take turns, three at a time, being the panel on the show.
contestants call in, and based on the round in question, if they get 2 out of the 3 questions right, they win the program's prize, Carl Kassel's totally awesome voice on their answering machine (it's public radio, what the hell do you want? a new car?)
the program is broken up into sections, often the same format, but some of the rounds change per week:
Who's Carl This Time? - Announcer Carl Kassel takes turns quoting people from the political universe and the caller has to identify who is the speaker of the quote.
Panel Round One: Each member of the panel answers one news-related question about the events of the past week
Bluff the Listener: My favorite segment; each panel member reads a story about a particular topic, the catch? Only one of them actually happened. It is up to the contestant to determine the real story, and if they do, they win the prize!
Not my Job: The interview portion of the show, guests ranging from Stephen Colbert to Lynn Cheney have appeared on the show, and the writers design questions specifically to stump the guest.
Panel Round Two: More Q&A from that week's panel.
Listener Limerick Challenge: Carl Kassel spits dope freestyle rhymes...i mean, recites a limerick and the contestant has to finish the rhyme.
Lightening Fill in the Blank: The final panel round which typically determines that week's winner on the panel. Points are awarded but they mean very little, but most of the questions are serious with a few goofy curveballs thrown in to shake things up a bit.
Prediction: the final segment where the panel predicts what will happen if a certain looming event comes to a head.
You can subscribe to the podcast in your iTunes player by clicking here
listening to it live on the air every Saturday at 11 AM on 91.5FM, KUNC
or streaming it live from the Wait Wait homepage, happy listening!
You say you want an evolution? (Part 2-Civil Rights in America)
CIVIL RIGHTS!
It's 2007, and we have the first legitimate black candidate for the office of the President of the United States:
Is there any doubt in the minds of any of you, my fair readers, that any of this could have been accomplished without the aid of Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, James Brown, Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Otis Redding, Gil-Scott Heron (and the Last Poets), Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, or Janis Ian (White Girl! Ian!). The songs sung by these folks through the 50s and 60s sparked some of the most powerful barrier-breaking in American culture. While the war generation was on its way out, these songs appealed to a new mentality in urban areas in America. No longer would the color of someone's skin be a reason to talk to or ignore them, to shun or praise them, to accept or reject them. James Brown told the world what to call Black people, enough of this "negro" shit, enough of this "african" shit, Now, we're people like the birds and the bees/we rather die on our feet than keep living on our knees/say it loud, i'm black and i'm proud.
FUCK YEAH!
These songs
changed the way the youth of America at the time saw racial issues.
These were deep songs with real meaning that sparked action in the
listeners. Suddenly music was a vehicle for social change, people
could connect to one another on a much broader level, as long as they
were singing the same songs, they were saying the same message. Black,
white, purple or yellow, if you knew the words, you were part of the
solution, if you didn't you were the problem.
Lewis Allen (Abel Meeropol - jewish dude!) wrote a poem called "Strange Fruit" as a reaction to seeing the lynchings of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Indiana. He set this poem to music and gave it to Billie Holiday in 1939. 
She then used the song to close all of her sets, "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't
even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to
clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping and cheering."
While Billie Holiday brought awareness and an emotional rhetoric to anti-black violence, Marvin Gaye was speaking about war and racism on a much broader level that still reverberates today:
Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today
-Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On?"
In 1971, this song became a huge success much to the chagrin of Gaye's manager who thought the song had zero commercial appeal. Here's an early face of the problem we have today, the managers and A&Rs don't think revolutionary music has much appeal to the masses, because of their level of comfort and security and stability. Today, this seems to be true, I have a motherfucking iPod, i can watch The State while i ride the bus to work and laugh my ass off, why the hell should i be concerned with a bunch of people killing each other across the sea?
For the sake of concision, I won't ramble on, but please please watch the Gil-Scott Heron video below. Back then there WAS a revolution to be un-televised, where the fuck is ours? At this point, i don't give a shit if it's on you tube, SOMEONE PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!
Next: The Waves of Punk Rock
James Brown - Say it Loud I'm Black and Proud buy iTunes
Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit (video!) buy iTunes
Bob Marley - Get up, Stand up buy iTunes
Gil-Scott Heron - The Revolution will not be Televised (Video) buy iTunes
Jimi Hendrix - House Burning Down buy amazon
Janis Ian - Society's Child buy amazon
You say you want an evolution? (Part 1)
According to Wikipedia:
Every major movement in Western history has been accompanied by its own collection of protest songs, from slave emancipation to women's suffrage, the labor movement, civil rights, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement. Over time, the songs have come to protest more abstract, moral issues, such as injustice, racial discrimination, the morality of war in general (as opposed to purely protesting individual wars), globalization, inflation, social inequalities, and incarceration . Such songs generally become more popular during times of social disruption among social groups.
As it stands, we're embroiled in a world which is constantly at war, women and minorities are still fighting for their voices and rights (even right here in America!), and globalization is scaring the shit out of pretty much everyone except for the Indians, the Chinese, and the major American corporations which are setting up shop overseas. So what is the soundtrack to our revolution going to be like?
are we going to have a revolution?
will it be televised?
First, a little background:
We can look at songs like "We shall overcome" and "Blowin' in the wind" and "What's Goin' On?" as more modern examples of songs which accompany a social movement and actually do some good. Louis Armstrong's "What did i do to be so Black and Blue", and Lewis Allan's "Strange Fruit" spoke of racial tensions in the South in the 20s and 30s; came with a message and were taken seriously by the consumers and listeners of music then. This helped crest the wave of radical change that needed to take place in order for the civil rights movement to do its magic. I'm not arguing here that these songs were responsible really in any way for the results that MLK and the civil rights movement acheived, but music is the language of our souls, it probes deeper into the human heart than words, legislation, law, or violence. You can listen to a song and disagree with its message, but the meaning itself slides into the soul when accompanied by melody and rhythm far better than dead words alone.
With "This machine kills facists" emblazoned on his guitar, Woodie Guthrie wrote the songs which inspired a generation of American radicals, "This land is your land" and "Deportee" were among the most notable.
This seems to be the first time that music was a threat the the big political machine that seeks to control our lives and limit our freedoms. Guthrie and The Almanac Singers were probably the most important labor-movement band, but they were blacklisted and disbanded shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The next hugely influential musical movement happened during
the most volatile time in 20th century America: the 1960s. The Vietnam War and Civil Rights movements coincided to produce the first real countercultural movements backed by mass media (music) in the history of the nation. Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Barry McGuire (First protest song to reach #1 on the charts in the US was McGuire's "Eve of Destruction")
EVE OF DESTRUCTION
The eastern world, it is exploding
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
[Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
tell me that this isn't relevant any longer
Woodie Guthrie - This land is your land buy iTunes
Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction (Video-FUCKING AWESOME)
all images copyright of their respective owners.