Fear and/or Sanity

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Well,  Jon Stewart may yet save the country…

This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith. Or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.”

“Not being able to be able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate.”

“The press is our immune system,” Mr. Stewart says. “If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker. And perhaps eczema. And yet, with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good.”

Damn straight. And damn brilliant.

1070

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Pardon my language, but this is fucking insane.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

The article goes on to describe the process, whereby legislators from across the country meet each year at conferences and draft sample legislation, ostensibly a kind of state-house happy hour networking event, although private companies (like representatives form the private prison industry) spend tens of thousands to attend and get in on the action, going as far as to suggestion what legislation to draft.

The draft language proposed in Arizona matched, to the letter, a draft bill proposed at one of these conferences.

Wednesday

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There’s something impressive about the Scottish guy on stage, sweating his ass off in the swampy-Texas-version-of-Fall, guitar slung upside down over his shoulder, pounding the crap out of a kettle drum while hundreds of fans sing along.

But let me back up.

Sometimes we get a little spoiled living here. The place is being over-run by hipsters in skinny jeans and downtown in dominated by carpet-bagging yuppies from California, staring down from their $500/sqft one-bedroom condos, complaining that we all talk funny here and that the eating melted cheeses on chips is uncivilized.

But then you get to go hang out a bar where the bartender remembers you (don’t judge), and you can eat some kickass food and have a few drinks before catching a pedicab over to a show at Stubbs to have some guys from Scotland rock your face off. And yeah it’s a Wednesday night, but this is Austin, and despite it all, we are still a kick-ass music town and Frightened Rabbit is putting on an awesome show to pretty packed house. Exhibit A: Half-way through a solo-acoustic version of Good Arms vs Bad Arms, Scott Hutchinson’s Guitar blows it’s pickup, so we’re suddenly left with only his vocals…the crowd steps up to the plate and sings along while he switches instruments, never missing a beat. In his words, “that was fucking brilliant.” Yes it was.

Before the 10:30 cutoff (thanks to the condos that went in across the street a few years ago). The band fires of a final salvo in the form of a face-melting, dance-your-ass-off-version of The Twist, then it’s time beat it back to the car.

This is not every Wednesday night. Most Wednesday’s find me yelling at a piece of code or web-bit that won’t behave, watching the Daily Show at 10 and passed out shortly there after. But we work to live in this town and this is a good place (to use a generalization), where we can have a night like this on a Wednesday, or watch 4th of July Fireworks from the Canoe, tear down some single track on the bike after work, or even just sit at Polvo’s, margarita in-hand. It’s worth the hipsters and the yuppies and working a little harder than I might otherwise.

TP Caucus

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Not really the 3rd party alternative we’d all been hoping for.

Nerd Uprising

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Thankfully, George Lucas was available to once again crush the hopes and dreams of his fans.

Crap Your Logo

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While the Gap has yielded to the wisdom of the crowds and gone back to their old logo, you still  have the chance to crap-out your own brand through this handy utility.

Understanding Twitter

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…in relationship to facebook.

On Facebook, you’re supposed to connect with close friends. Becoming friends with someone means he or she gets to see your content, but you also get to see his or her content in return. On Twitter, that’s not the case: you choose what information you want to receive, and you have no obligation to follow anybody. Facebook emphasizes profiles and people, while Twitter emphasizes the actual content (in its case, tweets).

The result is that the stream of information is simply different on both services. You’re more likely to talk about personal issues, happy birthday wishes, gossip about a changed Facebook relationship status, and postings about parties on your Facebook News Feed. On Twitter, you’re more likely to find links and news, and you’re more likely to follow brands, news sources and other entities outside of your social graph. In fact, Twitter tells me that one out of every four tweets includes a link to some form of content.

More…