I also kinda feel like because of my station in life (late 20s hipster), I’m not supposed to not like a Radiohead album.

But I’m not saying I didn’t like it; I’m saying I think it’s just okay. The first track, “Bloom”, sounds to me like someone messing around in Garage Band. Except of course for Thhhhhhom (I insist on pronouncing the “haych”) Yorke’s signature whiny vocals (which I like very much). Second track, “Morning Mr. Magpie”, we get a little of the angstier, edgier vocals that I love. As angsty as Artsy Bono* can be, anyway. The couple songs after that show off probably the thing I like the best about this album, the varying and juxtaposed rhythms. For me, the album finished better than it started, which I suppose is good, but it lacked that punch early on that gets me into an album. As a whole it was a bit too ethereal** for me.

There’s a good chance it’ll grow on me, I’m about to give it a second listen now, but I’m giving “The King of Limbs” an “Okay, sure.” 3/5

*I wish I could take credit for calling Thom Yorke “Artsy Bono,” but it was B.Dolan, who you should all check out if you like really good socio-political underground hip-hop.

**[edit]:After more thought and listening, “ethereal” is not really the right word. But I’m not quite sure what is…

I just listened to it today while doing cell culture at work. It’s less out-there than the earlier stuff that got me into Deerhoof (The Pickup Bear may still be my favorite song of theirs), but still feels original and different. And it definitely has the weird, sometimes goofy vibe that i love about the band. Maybe even whimsical at times. Modern American society highly undervalues whimsy. The album has some great grooves and nice use of electronics at times. Definitely a fun album to listen to, and i’ll bet it grows on me.

After the first listen, on my new 5-point scale (see below), i give Deerhoof vs. Evil a Cool.5

Also, for a few more days the Team Coco website is streaming the new Iron and Wine, and it sounds great. (lank)

Evan’s Sparkly Five Point Rating System:
Yay! – Clearly the best.
Cool – I like it, it is good.
Okay, Sure – It’s decent, but doesn’t really do it for me.
Meh – Do not like, but not terrible.
Whaaat. – It is bad.
Also,
DEB – Didn’t Even Bother.

PS. I want to take this opportunity to plug the webcomic Questionable Content, this is relevant because it is how i discovered Deerhoof in the first place.

Special, indeed. I will now take this opportunity to sound like a grumpy douchebag hipster. Fair warning.

THE BLACK EYED PEAS ARE THE NUMBER ONE REASON TO GET EXCITED ABOUT MUSIC?! Gimme a goddamn break, that list is full of acts way better and more worthwhile than BEP (did you really think i was gonna type that out every time?). I’m not saying they don’t belong on the list, clearly they have a huge impact on current music, and Will.i.am (what the shit is up will all this punctuation, and yet they don’t hyphenate “black-eyed”…?) is definitely fucking brilliant at what he does, really, but you’re gonna put them as number one? Of course you are, because they will probably sell more copies of your magazine than MGMT, or even Them Crooked Vultures or Chuck Berry. Maybe even more than Lady Gaga. Argh-a argh-a argh-a.

Of course it makes a whole lot of sense, given Will.i.am’s assertion that all music is inherently commercial anyway. Maybe i am a grumpy douchebag hipster, but i just can’t abide by that theory. Why does it have to be? Because people want to make a living off of it, and because distribution and live performances require capital and effort. I get that. But when you are PURPOSELY making half your songs indistinguishable from commercial jingles and even write songs just for Pepsi commercials, you may be making music but you ain’t making art. And yes, i guess i’m defining art as being inherently non-commercial which is very problematic and i probably don’t even agree with that, but, y’know, like, whatever. All i’m saying is there are plenty of people out there making music that is completely non-commercial (more or less), so to say that there is really no distinction between writing/performing music and business/sellin’ shit, is stuuuuuupid.

Anyway, shit just pisses me off, i shouldn’t be expecting a huge music magazine to put any effort into promoting smaller acts over the Black Eyed Peas. The article-type-thing about Will.i.am/BEP was at least interesting, if not the most well-written thing i’ve read recently (it wasn’t).

Oh and if you want to know (you don’t but i want to write it) a few things recently that have made me excited about music, here are some:
-Passion Pit’s album, “Manners”
-The Murs show at the Middle East in Cambridge last month, with Sick Jacken, Nocando, Verbs, Reason and D-Tension. I had never listened to any of them before, but was blown away by almost all of them.
-Listening to Soul Coughing again after a couple years

So there. Or something.

Good blog post, Evan.

This past Thursday (01/28), Dick Gordon of American Public Media’s “The Story” interviewed Sir Christopher Meyer, who was the UK’s Ambassador to the US from 1997-2003. In that capacity, he was involved in the politics and events from September 11, 2001 through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s really worth listening to what Sir Meyer has to say about all of that, particularly all the talks and negotiations between President Bush and PM Blair regarding the potential invasion of Iraq.

One point in particular that Sir Meyer made really struck me. He argues that regardless of the whole shady WMD thing, it was right to go after Saddam. Why? Because Saddam spent years ignoring or actively screwing over the UN, restricting the weapons inspectors, basically doing whatever he felt like to violate the terms of the 1991 ceasefire agreement. And that, according to Meyer, was plenty reason to confront him. I happen to agree with him on that one. It’s how i felt in 2003 and how i still feel. All the WMD talk that turned out to be bullshit anyway was a really bad way to frame the war, but regardless, something had to be done.

And Meyer also has what i consider to be the proper response to the eternal question of dubious worth, “If you had known then what you know now…” He says, “That’s a phony question. You take the view on the facts that you know at the time,” and goes on to assert his belief that the war was the right thing to do, and the fact that it’s been a “godawful mess” since then is irrelevant to the question. I may get my dirty liberal card revoked for this (actually i’m not sure i’ve quite earned it yet), but i say right on.

*It’s a real debate whether this will ever happen in the US, and whether it even should- i.e. would it really help anything, or just be a huge expenditure of time and money that would only serve to re-ignite all the emotion and divisions that have (mostly, or partly) been kind of overcome. I do think it’s important to truly sort out what was going on for something of that magnitude, but you know the latter would happen too, and i have to think there is still a great deal of political and personal anger simmering not too far below the surface of the issue.

1.
“Moscow’s stray dogs“, a really interesting article by Susanne Sternthal on the Financial Times’ site. Moscow is home to packs of stray dogs that are “in the early stages of the shift from the domesticated back towards the wild.” They range in personality type from friendly to humans/guard dogs and beggars, to loners or more wild/wolf-like. Some of them can even ride the metro. Read this article, it’s amazing.

2.
A Slate article by Jacob Weisberg on President Obama called, “Only Connect! How Obama’s cool, detached temperament is hurting him and his party.” He argues that Obama’s coolness, detachment and “curious sense of remove” set him apart from our last two presidents (Clinton and W.) in how he deals with pretty much everything, and that it’s hurting him because it’s interpreted by people as aloofness and arrogance. I agree with the analysis, but i think that’s OUR problem and not his. Why do we need a super emotional president that feels our pain and taunts our enemies? I guess it reflects on the American public character in general, yea? Personally, i’ll take a President who makes cool, calculated decisions over someone who shoots from the hip, even if that means we might not get along on a personal level. I don’t want to be friends with my president if that means he’s not doing as good of a job as he should/could be. Sheeeyut.

3.
Also, Weisberg opens the piece with some commentary on the recent special election in Massachusetts to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. I understand that EVERYONE seems to think that this election was a referendum on Obamacare and even on the man himself. I get that, and i’m sure it’s true to some degree. Probably to a large degree. But not many people seem to be talking about what is maybe a simpler explanation. MARTHA COAKLEY RAN A SHITTY CAMPAIGN. Scott Brown ran a good one that took advantage of Coakley’s mistakeS (capital S, there were many). Brown owned the internet, Coakley insulted the almighty Red Sox twice, dumb even if it was a bad joke, Coakley killed herself by going (very) negative first, allowing Brown to be the nice guy. Et fuckin’ cetera, ad nauseam (for real). Look, honestly i’m not fired up/interested/whatever enough to closely follow all the fallout, so i don’t wanna go on and on talking out of my ass here. And i’m not saying that this is the only reason she lost, ’cause that would be an incorrect and dumb thing to say. I just think it’s a pretty big factor that people don’t seem to be talking about as much. The truth, as Christopher Beam put it in Slate, is that we really just don’t know what happened.

Yes, i’m a Slateophile, sorry.

4.
One last thing from the Slate (told ya!) Culture Gabfest,* regarding the end of Air America. Their sentiment seems to be that Air America never really got the mojo going with the right hosts and shows, but more importantly that conservative preachin’ is just better suited for radio than the liberal preachin’. However, the reverse seems to be true for the internet where the liberals reign. It was mentioned that radio seems to be more top-down oriented, while the internet is more bottom-up, and that reflects the two parties pretty well. Doesn’t it? I thought that was a pretty great insight. Of course, once again, it’s difficult to derive a hard truth from any of these so-called huge shifts that have been happening lately. I guess id est quod id est.

*The Culturefest is awesome. So are the Political Gabfest (ok, so i have a total crush on Emily Bazelon) and pretty much all of the Slate podcasts. Yes, i have a problem. Oh Slate, what would i ever do if you left me?

Give me a fucking break. I’m sure it’ll be blocked by the state (maybe it already has, but i sincerely hope Hardin does get some detainees, nothing bad happens, and the town is revived.

*Sure, Hardin’s prison is far from supermax. But they’re still willing to upgrade the prison and take detainees, which i think makes all the naysayers (like Jon “These Gitmo guys are a scary bunch” Tester) look even more ridiculous.

Edit: Okay, maybe Hardin isn’t the first town to offer. Cheers also to Jim Moran. Good to see a politician putting his money (or at least his constituents’ money?) where his mouth is.

Skiba writes about the lone remaining moderate Republican senators- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both from Maine- and how this shift to an even more conservative policy is, according to Snow and Collins, “…bad for the GOP, bad for their region, and bad for America.” I have to agree.

As a former Republican- from my first registration at 18 through about 2 years ago when i became an Independent- i still feel the frustration. I watched over the years as the party was overtaken by the Neoconservative movement, and strayed from many of the values (small federal government, fiscal responsibility, less international intervention) that made me identify with Republicanism- even as they claimed to uphold them. That, and the push toward sometimes-extreme social conservatism bothered me. But i was a real Republican, an old-school Republican, and to paraphrase Michael Bolton, why should i change? They’re the ones that suck. But i didn’t, and still don’t, really identify with the Democratic Party either. So what was a boy to do? Move to a state where you can be an Independent and still vote in primaries (you can’t in PA), and jump ship.

Sometimes i still question that decision- now little old me leaving the Republican Party has no effect on them, but the loss of moderate elected Republican officials does have an effect. So the question is this- is it better to signal your displeasure by leaving, or by fighting back from within? I’m sure it’s tough, as it seems that the Republican base has grown more conservative (and smaller!) over the years, and politicians should represent their constituents. However, a push toward extremism, on either side, is bad for everyone. To be sure, the American two-party system is far less than ideal, but the solution can’t be to have essentially one party as the other is increasingly marginalized.

Come on moderates, Save the Republican Party?

Anyway, from a certain perspective it’s good to see that local citizens are still willing to help the US military bring their country under control, and it looks like we’ve even been able to export a little of the good ol’ American “fuck yeah!” attitude to the interpreters in Afghanistan:

“Afraid of the Taliban? No, I’m the man,” said Shakib, 22, one of thousands of Afghans recruited to work with U.S. and NATO forces as interpreters…

Any way you slice it, hiring human translators still seems to be better than the alternative.

Anyway they (Pro-Test @UCLA) also have a group on the face if you’d like to show a little support, and Drug Monkey has some more informative posts on the subject.

So let me get this straight. Wyeth put a warning label on the drug, a label that was approved by the FDA, saying “Seriously, don’t put this in arteries, it’s bad. Real bad.” Someone injects it into an artery. And Wyeth is responsible for that? Really? Seriously? IANAL but this seems totally ridiculous. What about whoever screwed up the injection? This reminds me of the whole “firearm manufacturers are responsible for murders committed using their products” thing, except even worse.

Justice Stevens wrote the majority opinion, saying in part that, “State tort suits uncover unknown drug hazards and provide incentives for drug manufacturers to disclose safety risks promptly.” Uh, well I would say that the warning label pretty clearly disclosed a known safety risk.

I briefly perused the court opinion[pdf] and a couple things became a little more clear. The real issue here is the adequacy of the warning, which states:

Due to the close proximity of arteries and veins in the areas most commonly used for intravenous injection, extreme care should be exercised to avoid perivascular extravasation or inadvertent intra-arterial injection. Reports compatible with inadvertent intra-arterial injection of Phenergan Injection, usually in conjunction with other drugs intended for intravenous use, suggest that pain, severe chemical irritation, severe spasm of distal vessels, and resultant gangrene requiring amputation are likely under such circumstances. Intravenous injection was intended in all the cases reported but perivascular extravasation or arterial placement of the needle is now suspect. There is no proven successful management of this condition after it occurs. . . . Aspiration of dark blood does not preclude intra-arterial needle placement, because blood is discolored upon contact with Phenergan Injection. Use of syringes with rigid plungers or of small bore needles might obscure typical arterial backflow if this is relied upon alone. When used intravenously, Phenergan Injection should be given in a concentration no greater than 25 mg per mL and at a rate not to exceed 25 mg per minute. When administering any irritant drug intravenously, it is usually preferable to inject it through the tubing of an intravenous infusion set that is known to be functioning satisfactorily. In the event that a patient complains of pain during intended intravenous injection of Phenergan Injection, the injection should be stopped immediately to provide for evaluation of possible arterial placement or perivascular extravasation.

So the question is whether or not that warning is adequate. Ms. Levine contended that it was not, because it didn’t specifically instruct clinicians to use an IV-drip instead of an IV-push (syringe), which has a higher risk of accidentally getting into an artery. That seems to be what happened- the arterial dosing was accidental. So here the case gets less clear-cut for me but i still think that it is an adequate warning, and the fault lies with the practitioners (against whom Ms. Levine had already settled lawsuits before going after Wyeth). I also (more or less) agree with Justice Alito, who wrote in the dissenting opinion that, “This case illustrates that tragic facts [i would say "sometimes"] make bad law. The Court holds that a state tort jury, rather than the Food and Drug Administration, is ultimately responsible for regulating warning labels for prescription drugs.” Now i tend to be more of a small federal government/more states’ rights kinda guy, but i think that in this case, maybe the state should not be usurping a federal agency. If one of the purposes of the FDA is to be the regulator of drug warning labels, and they approved the label in question, then perhaps they are at fault if the label is deemed inadequate. Wyeth seems to have fulfilled its legal obligation here.

It’s really not often that i find myself siding with a conservative judge and a big pharma company, sheesh. Either way, i guess it’s Pfizer’s problem now.