Scientific Literature/The Boss/The Horse's Mouth (Friday Cat/Concert/Better Know a Blog Blogging #5)

Friday Catblogging

I gave a talk this past Wednesday, so Karina decided to help out by studying the journal articles I had printed out. For those with good eyesight, that's a map of the dark matter in the universe going back billions of lightyears on the computer screen.

Friday's Concert Clip

Two weeks ago, I suggested that Green Day was the conscience of my generation, as frightening as that sounds given that a decade ago they were primarily famous for pop-punk ditties about masturbation. With apologies to the Dixie Chicks, the musical conscience of our nation is the same guy it's been now for the better part of three decades. His friends probably call him Bruce, but here we'll refer to him as The Boss. his album from this past year, "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" would easily top my chart for album of the year, managing an amazing mix of righteous anger and musical hilarity. Most of the songs here weren't written by Pete Seeger, and they're certainly not sung in the same way; rather, this album carries on the traditions of Pete Seeger trying to wake up a sleeping nation. Musically, the album is a tour of Americana, with large doses of New Orleans Dixieland, Irish-inflected fiddle tunes, and some more traditional roots and gospel numbers.

We'll start out with the most fun song on the album, "Pay me my money down", which comes as a 2-for-1, since this video also includes the band's rendition of a song I grew up singing in elementary school, "Erie Canal".

Next, moving into some politics, the haunting British anti-war ballad "Mrs. McGrath", a song about losing limbs in a war (it's a common theme, really, see also Johnny, I hardly knew ye and The band played Waltzing Matilda). The lyrics have been updated a bit for the modern era:
"All foreign wars I do proclaim
live on the blood and the mothers pain
I'd rather have my son as he used to be
Than the King of America and his whole navy"

Continuing on this theme, the best song not on the original album, whose title says it all: "Bring 'em home".

Lest we close on too depressing a note, someone seems to have put the prettiest song on the album, Shenandoah, to their own pictures of its scenery. Personally, I think the song is even more beautiful because of the gravel in his voice, lending it a melancholy counterpointed by the rising tone of the backing vocals. Some commenters apparently disagree over at youtube, but I believe it is because they are soulless morons who wouldn't know good music if it stuck a foot in their...well, you get the picture.

Better Know a Blog

One of my favorite blogs out there just switched home's moving from the borg-like liberal blog network at The American Prospect to the borg-like liberal blog network at Talking Points Memo. Today, we'll say a bit about The Horse's Mouth, a blog by Greg Sargent, which describes itself as "A blog about the repoting of politics -- and the politics of reporting". Some of you might have noticed I have a bit to say about these matters, so it should come as no surprise that I probably rank among his top 10 or 20 most frequent commenters. Greg's a cool guy, and very in tune with his audience, known to actually give thoughtful replies to many of his commenters, at least until you get tens or hundreds of them in a single thread and it's kinda hard to keep up.

The blog's focus is on how the media reports on politics: the unspoken assumptions that badly need to be clarified, how facts are molded to fit the current narratives (rather than the reverse), and how many leading pundits are often wrong about pretty much everything but in such a way that it never comes close to reducing their lucrative media appearances. If there is one thing I've learned from his blog and similar ones, it's that once a narrative is established (Gore thinks he invented the internet! Bush would be good to have a beer with! Democrats are effete and thus should not be listened to on matters of national security!), almost nothing can break it. Most of the reaction to Jim Webb's response to the state of the union involved how masculine he was, rather than the actual content of his criticisms! The media operates like this constantly. The little assumptions they make are everywhere, and it slants their reporting systematically. It's not that the slants are inherently left-leaning or right-leaning, just that it obscures the actual news under a cloud of trivial cow poop.

One of his current campaigns is an attack on the "centrist" label applied to anything that Senators Chuck Hagel or Joe Lieberman propose. Lieberman is near the median position for the Senate on domestic issues, but far to the right on foreign policy. Hagel is the exact reverse. On foreign policy, however, neither is anywhere near the center of the actual viewpoint of Americans, who are beginning to overwhelmingly turn on the war. The median position in the country is to pull all troops out within a year. With respect to that, a large majority of the Senate is out of the political mainstream, including the entirety of the Republican party. This is nothing new, they've been that way for a while. With regard to every item on the democrat's 100 hour agenda the public was strongly supportive, at least 60% in all cases. Thus, the liberal House of Representatives is "centrist" if the word has any meaning whatsoever. So long as the media has it's way, the word won't. Luckily, blogs like this are watching the gatekeepers, so there is still hope for positive change.

There's a darkness on the edge of town

Almost forgot to mention: Days seem very short in Seattle, and the mornings very dark, even taking into account the overcast skies. It turns out this is real, not perceived. Sunrise today in Seattle is at 7:56am, a full 41 minutes later relative to the clock than in Champaign. The sun there sets at 4:38pm, eight minutes before here, too. That's 49 minutes less daytime, which is pretty significant.

By the way, just so everyone's clear, the length of the day is determined by your latitude and the date. Seattle is at 47.6 N, Champaign at 40.1 N, or about 15% of the way toward the equator from them. Have no fear, though, these things always even out. In this case, they'll get longer days in the summer by the same margin as they come up short in winter. The big difference between sunrise times in the morning and smaller margin in sunsets just reflects where the cities are in relation to the time zone boundaries. We're in the eastern part of the time zone, which tends to make timed events occur earlier, whereas they're more centrally located.