John Edwards

Many of my longtime readers know that I supported John Edwards' candidacy.

When I heard the rumors last year, and again a few weeks ago, I thought that it was baloney. I didn't deny that Edwards was capable of an affair - he's a good-looking, wealthy guy with a high profile and a strong opinion of himself. However, his relationship with his wife seemed rock-solid, and the evidence from the Enquirer seemed suspect. There were no photographs. There was no hard proof. And after all, it was a supermarket tabloid. I chose to ignore the rumors.

I don't know yet how I think about the confession by Edwards of his affair - his short-term affair that he says ended two years ago. I don't care, frankly, to know how long it went on, how it ended, how many times they slept together. None of it is my business.

He has spoken out and so has his wife. I bear both of their statements in mind.

John Edwards Statement

Elizabeth Edwards Statement

However, I cared about this man and I committed myself to his presidency. I was moved by his support of poverty issues, by his highlighting of issues being ignored by most other candidates. I would have willingly followed him all the way to the convention, and then to the White House.

Who knows when this would have surfaced if he had become the frontrunner instead of Obama? In New Hampshire? In Nevada? Before the nomination? Who knows, if he had become the candidate, what would have happened to his candidacy if this story had broken in September or October?

Edwards made a foolish mistake, as millions of men and women have also made. But he was running for president with this in his back pocket. He ended the affair - he announced his candidacy on December 28, 2006. He lied about this affair for nearly a year - beginning in October of last year - knowing that it was true. His wife knew the truth, but he strung the rest of us along for his entire candidacy and beyond. We believed in him, and when he said the rumors were bunk, we believed him because we believed in him. We were lied to, all of us. I cannot just let this go. I cannot reconcile this with platitudes about his privacy or about the fallibility of the human condition.

He lied to me, and the National Enquirer had to bring the news that he was a liar. Thank you very much, John.

Sure, it never should have become public. Sure. Sure, he deserves his privacy. But goddammit, he knew this was going to come back and bite him eventually. He's a public figure, and things like this do not just go away. (And if he wanted it to go away, what the hell was he doing visiting this woman in July 2008? He says he ended the affair in 2006 - why was he still visiting her last month?)

I don't know who I'm angriest with - the press or John Edwards. But Meteor Blades wrote a white-hot post on Kos that stuck with me.

You knew when you declared for the presidency that this affair hung over you, that it might easily come to light. That it could, had you gained the nomination, have wrecked the party’s chances for winning the White House, tamped down support for Democrats running for seats in Congress, and set progressives back a decade. You knew that when you kept your name in the hopper for the vice presidency.

But you kept running anyway. You lied. And you got others to lie for you. You did this knowing full well the damage that could be done, not to your marriage, but to the party and the aspirations for better governance of those who looked to you as a leader who could help bring it about.

Your populist message was and is a crucial one, the source of much of your support, the reason that many of us backed you even though your past record on an array of issues, including Iraq, gave us pause. We gave you credit for changing your mind. Your speaking out for the needs of a sector of the population previously ignored by other candidates created a powerful and loyal constituency.

You have made it clear that you cared more about yourself than about that constituency. Than about us. You were willing to take a chance that you would be nominated for the Presidency and that the revelation of this affair would put a Republican in the White House, ironically, a Republican who betrays and mistreats the women in his life, too.

So that's what Meteor thinks.

As I said before, I don't really know what to think about this. What do you think? Tell me where you're at on this. I hate having to talk about this, but we're here, and it's out, so we might as well talk about it.

Bea

Oliver has a baby doll. For the longest time, she was just an occasional toy. He played with her sometimes, but mostly he ignored her. She sat unused for months, collecting dust, just another stuffed thing in the bin of stuffed things. Suddenly, he has fallen madly in love with this doll. He carries her everywhere. He went to bed with her clutched in his arms the last three nights. It's his baby.

Her name is Bea. His name was going to be Beatrice if he was a girl, so Mrs. B took the liberty of naming his baby doll for him. There's something strange about him carrying around something with his alternate-universe female name. It's as if he's holding his other half.

He tells us that she's his baby. That's exactly how he says it - "she's my ba-by," he says somberly. "I wuv her."

I must get this on video, because when he says "she's my baby," his voice croaks with emotion. He says it with a combination of unconditional love and existential dread, like he knows that the love he has for Bea is ultimately going to break his heart and destroy him. (I don't really believe that myself, about Bea or about him, but when he says it, you just hear the heartache in his voice.)


She went to the beach with us last week. She went shopping on Sunday and patiently sat in a chair while he tried on shoes. He eats with her. He asks us to get her sippy cups full of milk and water. When we read stories, he insists that we read to both of them. Sometimes, he comes looking for food in the kitchen and he says "we're hungry."

But mostly, it's the endless clutching and looking at her. And he really doesn't look joyfully at her, like he's thrilled to have a baby. He looks honest-to-God mournful. Haunted. Or maybe that's just his way of looking protective and watchful. But he just looks so burdened. It's hard work being a parent, but he's only three yet - he shouldn't know this.

Elegy for the Bryant Park Project

It's over. It's really over.

Tomorrow - Friday, June 25th - is the last broadcast of the Bryant Park Project.

My friends at Radio Sweethearts decided to put together a mixtape for the BPP crew. It was such a good idea that I stole borrowed it.

So here's my own BPP playlist. It covers all the emotional bases - sadness, anger, depression, shock, and plain' old anger. I tried to post songs or mp3s where I could, videos where I had to. Enjoy.

"The Long Road" - Pearl Jam

And the wind keeps rollin'
And the sky keeps turning grey
And the sun is set
The sun will rise another day

"Song for the Dumped" - Ben Folds Five

Yeah, this is just a FU song. Some bad words in here, but the anger is right on target.

"Top of the World" - Patty Griffin

There's a whole lotta singing that's never gonna be heard...

"My City of Ruins" - Bruce Springsteen

(It's a video link, but it's really worth watching the performance from the Tribute to Heroes.)

"Last Goodbye" - Jeff Buckley

"If Not Now" - Tracy Chapman

This is my first slap-in-the-head song for NPR. Their wooden-headed CEO has said they want radio for the next generation. They had a radio program for the next generation, and they say it wasn't good enough for them. If not now, then when?

"I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" - Dusty Springfield

"You Were Meant for Me" - Jewel

"Love is Stronger than Death" - the The

"Lifeline" - Harry Nilsson

"Nothing Compares 2 U" - Sinead O'Connor

"You Oughta Know" - Alanis Morrissette

Another slap in the head for NPR, because you know those boneheads are going to try and cook up another morning-show-for-hipsters that completely misses the point of why the BPP was so great. They're going to have their rebound relationship with another show, and it's gonna suck, and they're going to be left sitting on the curb, head in hands, wondering what went wrong.

"Since U Been Gone" - Kelly Clarkson

"You had your chance, you blew it!"

I believe the end of the BPP is going to be the launch of a few brilliant careers. There were remarkably talented people associated with this show who did some unforgettable work. Matt Martinez, Dan Pashman, Tricia McKinney, Laura Conaway, Ian Chillag, Win Rosenfeld, Caitlin Kenney, and the unstoppable Alison Stewart (not to mention everyone that I'm forgetting) - geniuses. We have not heard the last from this talented crew.

So this last song is a triumphant kiss-off. NPR didn't know what they had, and they have no idea what they're losing. The BPP crew is going to bounce back stronger and better. They're all going to make it. We're all going to make it.

Peace and love to the entire BPP posse. And if you're mourning the loss, too, go to the BPP Diner. You never know who you'll find there.

Killing the BPP

So the interim CEO of NPR (they fired the last one) has a blog. And on that blog today, he decided to share his thoughts on the Bryant Park Project. The BPP - who have done everything they can to maintain pressure on NPR to keep them alive - linked to his blog on theirs.

Here's the gist of what he said. A staffer apparently contacted him with the idea of keeping it alive as a web-only project. The short answer is "sorry, no". The long answer is some of the most bewildering business-speak I've had the misfortune to read. It's an infuriating read. Go see for yourself.

We've/I've learned -- or relearned -- a lot in the process. Sustaining a new program of this financial magnitude requires attracting users from each of the platforms we can access. In this case, radio carriage was inadequate and web/podcasting usage was hampered -- here's the relearning part -- by having an appointment program in a medium that doesn't excel in that kind of usage. Web radio is growing very rapidly (much faster than FM did, for example), but it's almost all to music and, increasingly, to attention-tracking music.

Perhaps the future of news on the web is in the same user-programmed direction. I'd like to see good minds like those of the BPP staff think about how we can do good journalism delivered via the web using techniques beyond just throwing up another portal-type web site and expecting people to come to it. Our new open API release is a great tool for that. The realities of how people use the web, how web audiences grow through search, and technologies for tracking attention and tailoring content delivery to match how people spend their attention all need to be considered. Portals still have a place, just as their close cousins radio transmitters do, but we can no longer put all our eggs in that basket.

NPR will, I hope, be a leader in a new generation of news delivery over multiple platforms, including ones we've never conceived. But we can't make those 2nd generation investments if we continue 1st generation efforts that aren't consistent with what we know about how media usage is maturing.

All I learned from his comments were that NPR has no idea what they're doing. They wanted to launch some sort of web/radio hybrid, something for the 21st century radio listener, but they didn't seem to know what they really wanted to do. They want to succeed in the new media age, but didn't realize that the BPP was actually succeeding. They can't identify it as success because they don't know what they're hoping to achieve. Anyway, after his post appeared on the BPP blog, I responded with a fairly long comment. Here's what I wrote:

You can't make those second-generation efforts succeed if you kill off the attempts to create "new media" before giving them a chance to succeed. I can't believe that you would cancel the BPP - a slap in the face to all associated with the project - and then ask its braintrust to come up with ideas on creating online content. They had a brilliant idea, and you've euthanized it.

You suggest that the BPP was an example of "putting all your eggs in one basket". But later in your piece, you demonstrate that you haven't put all of your eggs in one basket: you're podcasting, you've got the new NPR Music website, you've got the API, and you've got the BPP. It seemed to me that the BPP was part of a strategy - not the be-all/end-all of your new media strategy. There must be a way to keep the BPP going in some lower-cost format, since is it your most adventurous and most successful venture in 21st generation media to date.

The comparison to Morning Edition and ATC's audience - even in terms of podcasts - is unfair. Those programs have a thirty-year record, and they are essentially "destination programs." When people are trying to find NPR programs, they look for Morning Edition and All Things Considered. They don't look for News and Notes. They don't look for Tell Me More. They don't look for the BPP. This is a problem of branding and marketing, not of the BPP's quality or content. This is an external problem, not an internal one.

Despite that, the BPP built a passionate audience of a million people - on air, online, on Twitter, on Facebook, on the blog - in less than ten months. Morning Edition has an audience of thirteen million, after thirty years.

BPP is part of the long list of programs on the NPR website, but without some strategic cross-marketing, of course it's not going to succeed. Morning Edition and All Things Considered should be promoting the BPP regularly, in the way that they regularly use stories from programs like Youth Radio and other outside projects. (I can't find a single instance of a BPP story appearing on ATC. Not one.) There needs to be a strategic effort to build cross-brand interest. You don't just send a new project out there to sink or swim - it has to be nurtured and supported, or else it will inevitably fail.

Feel the Excitement

Hem - Things Are Not Perfect in Our Yard

A simply beautiful song, unreleased, only available on their website. (Graphic by Dan Messé, one of the geniuses behind Hem.)

Things Are Not Perfect in Our Yard

Note: the link will download a .zip file that contains the song in mp3 form. If you want the other three new songs from their website, go here.

With any luck, and if their pattern holds, these songs will eventually find a proper home on a future Hem album.

Shara Worden Hits the Big Time (?)

I was flipping around the Rolling Stone website today, when suddenly I saw a familiar face.

My Brightest Diamond.

They appear to have a web-only feature on up-and-coming artists, and this time around they featured the lovely and talented Shara Worden. There's a couple of interesting tidbits there (she worked with the guy who also produced Tom Waits' Alice and Blood Money). And it's Rolling Stone, so they've got to try and put a label on this indefinable artist. Here's what they came up with.

Sounds Like: Bjork gone minimalist, with a bit of American chamber pop sheen thrown in for good measure.

Uhhh ... sure.

The highlight for me was the video. She does an version of "Inside a Boy", accompanied only by her own acoustic guitar and occasional sounds of barking dogs. (She's performing at a public park in New York which apparently is an off-leash park for dogs.)

It's amazing to hear this powerful song stripped down to its core. It works, even with this simplest of arrangements. And her voice is, as always, glorious. (She always seems to grin when she sings. I guess I'd grin, too, if I had pipes like that.)

Check it out.

Save the Bryant Park Project

NPR has cancelled the Bryant Park Project.

I fell in love with this show from the first time I heard it. It was brash, loud, taunting, occasionally obnoxious. The hosts were not afraid to be wrong. They talked about trivial subjects and made them seem enormous in their significance. They talked about obscure subjects - public art! astrophysics! Sigur Ros! - and made them accessible. Except, um, Sigur Ros. (If you haven't seen "the worst interview in the history of electronic media," you must see it now.)

It was everything that NPR was not. It was sharp, witty, engaging radio. The hosts loved their audience and spoke to them, not at them. They cared about the people on the other end of the speaker. I have never felt like I was part of Morning Edition's audience. On the other hand, I always felt like was part of the BPP's audience, and I always felt like I could make a suggestion and they would actually listen. And probably, they'd write back. This was a radio show made of people just like me.


This is a great show. It is great on a level with This American Life. Imagine if NPR had snuffed out that show in its first year. "Oh, gosh, it's not getting the audience we wanted." No, they allowed it to grow and to find its audience, and in the process, Ira Glass' little show changed the face of public radio.

The BPP was changing radio. It was exploding radio into the 21st century, blending a traditional radio format with a live website, an active blog, videos from the studio, a Facebook following, and tweets from Twitter. It was a 360º radio program. After Radiolab, it was the second great radio show of the new century. Not good - great.

Don't let NPR kill this show. If you ever listened to this show, let NPR know they're making a mistake. The good people at Radio Sweethearts have the details on how to get in touch with NPR:

If you, too, dislike their cancellation, please call the people at these phone numbers, and let them know (politely) how you feel.

• NPR media relations: 202-513-2300
• NPR listener service: 202-513-3232

Laura Conaway, the BPP online editor, posted the following on the BPP blog:

A lot of you have asked where you can write to register your unhappiness with NPR’s decision. Here’s the answer: Go to npr.org/contact/. Click on the “I want to contact a program” option and pick Bryant Park in the drop-down menu. I’ve been assured that NPR has set up a special folder for these so they’ll be separated quickly from the rest of the audience e-mail and directed to the right person. Don’t send it to “contact an NPR office/management,” since it will go into the general pool of incoming mail and will take longer to be forwarded.

You can also write to our Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. She can be reached here.

There is now also a “Save BPP” Facebook Group.

Do it. Get up out of your easy chair and do it now. If you haven't heard this brilliant show yet, go to the website and check out a few stories. You don't know what you're missing. Check it out now before it's too late.

More Thoughts About ACORN

Peter Dreier and John Atlas have an excellent article on HuffPo this morning that covers all of ACORN's good work over the last thirty-eight years. They also have a nice shout-out to yours truly in the article (I'll forgive them for not citing my blog):

One former organizer wrote on his blog, "conservatives and others are going to use this as an opportunity to bash ACORN -- and by extension, every social justice-minded nonprofit in the country." He correctly observed that, "the conservatives are going after [ACORN] for the wrong reasons. Working for social justice for low-income families is a noble pursuit and should be celebrated. Fraud has nothing to do with ACORN's mission. This didn't happen because of ACORN's mission -- it happened because of the greed of Dale Rathke and the unconscionable acts of a few organization insiders. This is a people problem, not a mission problem. Do not be confused."

Dreier and Atlas are exactly right that ACORN is now being attacked by groups who have wanted them dead for a long time. The people who are attacking ACORN now are its targets - the politicians who refuse to sign living wage laws, the business interests who don't want to treat their workers like human beings, crooked lenders who make money off the misery of low-income people.

And perhaps I was a bit harsh in my last post, because I was falling into the same trap of condeming the whole organization for the errors of a few people. ACORN doesn't deserve to die for this (and the country will be worse off if they do collapse because of this). However, they're going to have a very tough road ahead of them. It will take them years to shake the spectre of this moment, and it's possible it will never go away completely. They'll need to make sure it never happens. If they haven't done so already, they'll need to clamp down on their accounting. They'll have to be very public and very direct about exactly what money they have and exactly what they plan to do with it. Any secrecy at this point will be seen - rightly or wrongly - as hiding something.

I have to mention that the ACORN situation is not just being discussed by ACORN's opponents. Many of us in the social justice world are going to keep our concerns quiet, just as we've kept quiet before when other national organizations have folded due to financial mismanagement and ill-advised partnerships. It's not nice to wash your dirty laundry in public.

But I can guarantee you that we're talking about it today. There are whispered conversations happening all across the non-profit world about ACORN. Organizers are talking about it in their break rooms. Canvassers are discussing it on street corners before they begin their shift. Executive directors are discussing it with their boards. This is one of those moments where thousands of organizations are taking stock, making sure they don't have any skeletons in the closet like this.

Every organization I've worked for has done a stellar job of making their funding and their internal workings transparent. As I've said again and again, nonprofits have an obligation to the public and that obligation includes transparency. We make our 990s public. We post our annual reports on the website. When a problem arises, the best organizations talk about it with their board and their funders - they don't sweep it under the rug.

Our collective mission, expressed a thousand different ways, is to fight for the public good. We have an obligation to keep ourselves running in order to fight for the betterment of our country and our community. We have an obligation to keep our collective noses clean, so scandals like this don't bring our work to a grinding halt. It's not just a good idea - it is our duty and part of our bond with the people for whom we fight.

We owe it to the public not to fail - particularly not to fail because of our own stupidity. It's bad enough when an nonprofit fails because their funding dries up. It is absolutely shameful when an NPO fails because they weren't minding the books, or minding their own staff.

All across America, organizations are asking themselves, "could we be the next ACORN?" Nonprofits live with small budgets and a whisper-thin margin of error. And unlike most businesses, we make our living by fighting against very powerful interests. It only takes one mistake - large or small - to drown an organization. It only takes one slip to negate years of good, honorable work. So ACORN's current scandal is not something we celebrate. It's a vivid reminder of how vulnerable we all are.

The Fall of ACORN

I don't even know what to say.

I've criticized ACORN in the past. Lord knows I don't think much of ACORN. They're a decent organization with some significant flaws.

But I never thought they would be capable of criminal behavior. The New York Times today ran a story that suggests otherwise.

Acorn chose to treat the embezzlement of nearly $1 million eight years ago as an internal matter and did not even notify its board. [...]

A whistle-blower forced Acorn to disclose the embezzlement, which involved the brother of the organization’s founder, Wade Rathke.

The brother, Dale Rathke, embezzled nearly $1 million from Acorn and affiliated charitable organizations in 1999 and 2000, Acorn officials said, but a small group of executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement.

(Emphasis mine.)

"Embezzle" is a nice word that means "steal." They covered up a theft of a million dollars for nearly a decade. That's criminal behavior, folks. That's fraud. Every time they requested a grant, they were lying about their finances. Every time they knocked on someone's door and asked for money, they were lying about where the money was actually going. It was going into the pocket of the founder's brother.

“It was a judgment call at the time, and looking back, people can agree or disagree with it, but we did what we thought was right.”

With all due respect to Maude Herd, ACORN's president - this was not a judgment call. This is not money that belongs to ACORN. They're a non-profit - they are accountable to their members and to the public. They had no right to conceal this. They have a public trust that they violated, and that they have been violating on an ongoing basis for nearly a decade.

Embezzlement is one thing. It's impossible to stop someone who has access to funds and misuses them. It's possible to limit the possibility of fraud with careful supervision and rigorous checks and balances. (This clearly didn't happen in this case.)

But once a crime happens, they had an obligation to report it to the authorities. And I believe they had an obligation to report it to their funders, including their members. This would have been the most transparent, responsible response to the crime. They didn't do that. They did exactly the opposite. Like they say, it ain't about the crime, it's about the cover-up. The cover-up is what's going to kill ACORN.

There are millions of nonprofits in the world and many of them are doing heroic work with little to no money. ACORN has brought shame upon them all with their selfish, cowardly behavior. If they don't survive this scandal, I won't shed any tears at their funeral.

One more thing that must be said: conservatives and others are going to use this as an opportunity to bash ACORN - and by extension, every social justice-minded nonprofit in the country. This was exactly the reason that Rathke (Wade - the one who didn't directly embezzle $1 million) cited in concealing the theft. (So Mr. Chief Organizer - now that it's become public, and now that it's also come to light that ACORN concealed it for eight years, you think this makes you look better?)

ACORN has opened itself up to massive criticism, but the conservatives are going after it for the wrong reasons. Working for social justice for low-income families is a noble pursuit and should be celebrated. Fraud has nothing to do with ACORN's mission. This didn't happen because of ACORN's mission - it happened because of the greed of Dale Rathke and the unconscionable acts of a few organization insiders. This is a people problem, not a mission problem. Do not be confused.

An Eight-year-old Reviews Cloud Cult

The guy who runs the Sneeze asked his "almost eight year old" to review an album. His thoughts:

This album is the best one I've ever heard in my life. It makes my insides stand up and salute the appreciation of rock music made by you.

Also, for good measure:

If you're in a Radio Shack and you see guys dressed up for a tea party with clouds, buy that one. Because that one's "Feel Good Ghosts." It's the best. It makes me want to get up out of my seat and start par-taying. That means partying.

Come on now. You'd buy any album in the world if someone described it like that. In this case, he was describing Cloud Cult's new album, Feel Good Ghosts. I haven't heard it yet - I'm sampling a few songs from their MySpace page right now and I'll probably own it before the day is out.

Songs for Independence Day

It's hard for me to find songs about this country that a) aren't angry and bitter, or b) aren't too overused and cliched and, y'know, kinda sappy. But here's a good collection of songs that conjure the right images for me.

Several of the songs called out the uniquely American image of going somewhere and starting your life over again. The concept if reinvention is embedded in the history of this country, and at its best, America is the place where it's never too late to become who you might have been.

Several other songs focused on the immigrant experience. My paternal grandparents came to this country from Mexico and found schools, housing, and opportunity for themselves and their family. My father, a first-generation American, is one of the most patriotic people I know - both in terms of love of country, and in terms of being angry with America for not living up to the ideals that it embodies. Nobody gets this country metaphorically better than the most recent immigrants.

I pulled out the angrier songs into a second playlist instead of omitting them completely. I think it's important and honorable to love your country even as you hate its actions. I hate the war that we started for no good reason in Iraq. I hate that nearly 50 million people in this country have no heatlth care. I hate that so many people are being laid off or have no hope for finding work or opportunities for themselves or their families. But I love this country - for what it is and for what it could be.

"Chicago" - Sufjan Stevens
"Different Trains: America - Before the War" - Steve Reich
"Fourth of July" - Charles Ives (because any holiday needs a little chaos)
"America" - Simon & Garfunkel
"This Land is Your Land" - Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger
"I Am a Patriot" - Little Steven
"America the Beautiful" - Ray Charles
"America" - Soundtrack, West Side Story
"American Land" - Bruce Springsteen
"Ashes of American Flags" - Wilco
"City of Immigrants" - Steve Earle
"The Hands That Built America" - U2
"A Change is Gonna Come" - Sam Cooke (but performed here by the amazing Ryan Shaw)

Angry Patriot Songs:

"Bullet the Blue Sky" - U2
"The Star Spangled Banner" - Jimi Hendrix
"(Who Discovered) America?" - Ozomatli
"Christmas in Washington" - Steve Earle (this is the live version - it's nine minutes long but worth it)

Happy Independence Day, folks.

Blessed Unrest

Listen. I want to share something with you.

This quote can be found at the end of Paul Hawken's amazing book, Blessed Unrest. I'm going to talk more about the book, but first I want to share this quote with you.

There are two kinds of games - games that end, and games that don't. In the first game the rules are fixed and rigid. In the second, the rules change whenever necessary to keep the game going. James Carse called these, respectively, finite and infinite games. We play finite games to compete and win. They always have losers and are called business, banking, war, NBA, Wall Street, and politics. We play infinite games to play; they have no losers because the object of the game is to keep playing. Infinite games pay it forward and fill future coffers. They are called potlatch, family, samba, prayer, culture, tree planting, storytelling, and gospel singing. Sustainability, ensuring the future of life on earth, is an infinite game, the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all. Any action that threatens sustainability can end the game, which is why groups dedicated to keeping the game going assiduously address any harmful policy, law, or endeavor. With no invitation, they invade and take care of the finite games of the world, not to win but to transform finite games into infinite ones. They want to keep the fish game going, so they go after polluters of rivers. They want to keep the culture game going, so they confront oil exploration in Ecuador. They want to keep the hope game alive in the world, so they go after the roots of poverty. They want to keep the species game happening, so they buy swaths of habitat and undeveloped land. They want to keep the child game going; consequently, when the United States violated the Geneva Convention and bombed the 1,400 Iraqi water and sewage treatment plants in the first gulf War, creating sewage-, cholera-, and typhus-laden water, they condemned it as morally repugnant.

Read it again, if you'd like.

That quote captures the essence of this book perfectly. Hawken aims to do nothing less than chronicle the history of the nonprofit movement that exists today - a million or more nonprofit organizations (or NGOs - nongovernmental organizations), all working separately and working together to improve the world.

He spends several chapters laying out the history - the icons (King, Gandhi, Thoreau and Emerson), the early movements (including the abolitionist movement, which he describes as "the first group to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know") and then the eruption of NGOs around the world. He talks about the successes and the failures, the triumphs and the struggles (racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia) that still haunt the nonprofit world. He covers it all in less than 200 pages.

This is a dense book. Summing up over a million NGOs in two hundred pages is not a simple task. I found myself taking a break after every chapter to soak in all of the information. Yet the book is not textbook-heavy. He works in the grandest and broadest terms, and yet still uses anecdotes and concrete examples of the movement at work. It is a joy to read. But it's an immense topic, and in his effort to describe the giant network that is "the movement," he found it necessary to include an appendix of over 100 pages that attempts to broadly categorize the various groups that make up "the movement." The appendix alone is an astonishing exercise and a thing to behold.

Midway through the book, Hawken begins describing the human immune system. It seems tangential at first, but then he makes the great leap. He proposes that 'the movement' - the immense network of NGOs, all working to clean up and reform and revitalize their own little corner of the world - is working as the world's own immune system.

Our movement works independently - there is no grand agenda, no great magna carta that we have all signed, no talking points to which we all agree. We work without coordination - and yet we cover each other, we find the gaps left by others, we complement and compliment each other's missions and visions. Like an immune system, we operate as if steered by an unseen hand, rooting out evil and imperfections and attacking mercilessly so that the organism will continue. The organism is us. The organism is the world.

I have worked in a social justice organization, an environmental organization, a legal defense organization. I now work with seniors. I have made the argument since my first job that all of our work was all tied together, and I always talked it as "the movement". Social justice included the rights of prisoners. Protecting water was as important and was connected to fighting for universal health care. For years, I have carried in my head the idea that there was only one movement - an enormous movement, a connected network of groups working to better the world, all in their little way.

Paul Hawken brings "the movement" to life. He makes me hopeful that, in spite of all of our losses small and great, we are transforming the world and indeed, we may have already transformed it. Hawken's book reminds me that, despite the faults and missteps of our movement, the very fact that our movement exists is reason to hope. Our existence and the work we do everyday is a triumph for humanity. He makes me proud to be part of the movement. Everyone who makes their living in a nonprofit should read this book

Gas Prices: "I Don't See How It Matters"

John McCain is so not ready for prime time.

Check out this brilliant exchange, from a phone interview with the Orange County Register. (You can also follow the link to hear the audio, just in case you thought this didn't actually happen.)

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.

He waits for a beat and then tries to add this "I feel your pain"-type comment.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

I'll bet that if you're reading this, you can remember how much you paid for your last tank of gas. (We filled up our Scion xB on Saturday, and it cost $42.) McCain doesn't know how much gas costs for the average American, and he doesn't care. Why should he? Only the little people worry about stuff like gas prices. He's too busy worrying about ...

um ...

what exactly is McCain an expert in?

Oops

Boa constrictor hugs seemed like such a good idea. I get to squeeze my kid extra-tight, he giggles and wiggles and tries to get away, everyone has a good time. Pure innocent fun.

Ah, but then comes the natural corollary. At least one time during a good boa constrictor hug, every parent has to find out what it means to squeeze their kiddo just a little too tight. And maybe, just for kicks, you'll squeeze your kid on his tummy instead of his ribs.

And did I mention Oliver still drinks a nice tall sippy cup of milk before he goes to bed?

I just changed my shirt. I still can't figure out why the milk started coming out of his nose first, but I think he's gotten the last boa constrictor hug from daddy for a very long time.

R.I.P. George Carlin

"That's my job - thinking up goofy shit. Coming back here every once in a while, letting you know what it is ... or reminding you of shit you already knew, but forgot to laugh at the first time."

Everyone thinks of the seven dirty words when they think of the late, great George Carlin. That's fine - it was a big deal. One of his albums was defended all the way to the Supreme Court. That's pretty fucking cool. As Carlin himself said, "my name is a footnote in American history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of."

Some people will remember the whimsical George Carlin. The charmingly funny stuff, or the goofy funny stuff.

Baseball and Football.

A Place for My Stuff.

Or they'll remember him for his brilliant skewering of the English language, like this routine on euphemisms.

But let's not forget that George Carlin was a bombthrower at his heart. "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." His job was to challenge his audience and jar them out of their complacency. As soon as they got comfortable with who he was or what he was going to say, he knew it was time to shake up his routine.

Check out this routine from 1992.

His own audience starts booing him about two minutes into this. But by the end of the bit, they're all on their feet. It's an astonishing and ferocious performance. This is my favorite routine by Carlin, just because it makes me so damn uncomfortable.

Carlin dared the audience to look at the things all around them and realize how fucking ridiculous it all was. Sometimes they hated him for it, but he was just doing his job. There were nights when he was probably the only person in the room who knew it was his job. But he knew it, every day and every night.

For this reason alone, George Carlin is the greatest comedian I ever heard, and the world is a poorer place without him in it.
I don't know if George is up in heaven or not - maybe you have to believe in it before it believes in you - but I wish I could have seen that first conversation between him and god. He must have had the old guy spewing root beer out of his nose.

Good night, George Carlin. Thanks for everything.

Tides

When he goes to sleep, one of us has to lay down with him. When I do it, I curl myself around him in his little toddler bed. I fold my legs up and his tiny feet press up against the tops of my thighs.

Inevitably, he asks for me to put an arm out. He tucks himself into the crook of my arm, and snuggles up close.

And then it's a waiting game. Some days, he rolls back and forth. He tells me to switch sides in the bed, takes the pillow away from me dramatically, demands his snuggle blanket or a toy. He plays the covers/no covers game - "I want covers! No, I don't want covers. No, daddy, I want covers." He mumbles and chatters and jabbers and takes an hour to fall asleep.

And some nights, it's better.

Tonight was a good night. He lay with his face inches from mine and I could see his eyelids sinking slowly. He started humming "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - sounding oddly like a saxophone. Short, crisp notes like Stan Getz.

He played with the covers for a few minutes and then he gave up. His heart wasn't in the game. And in a few minutes, I felt his weight sink into my shoulder. I lay for a minute, listening to him sleep. His body moved gently, almost imperceptibly, as he breathed in and out. I imagined him a tiny rowboat, rocking to a gentle unseen tide.

Supreme Court Reverses Gore Endorsement, Awarding it to McCain

Mere moments after formally announcing his backing for Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in an email to supporters, former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement was blocked and reversed by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, handing the Nobel Prize winner’s full throated support to Republican nominee John McCain.

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that regardless of who Gore intended to support, a strict constructionist reading of his statement made it clear that, from a legal standpoint, his endorsement must be awarded to the GOP candidate.

Read the scoop at Really Serious News.

A Righteous Wind at Our Backs: Barack Obama circa 2004

Remember back when Barack Obama was an unknown? Remember that speech in Boston? Nobody know that his speech was going to be "the speech." Nobody knew how far that speech was going to carry him.

Except maybe the man himself. Obama wrote his speech at the Democratic Convention himself, and worked for weeks and weeks on it. By the time he turned it in, he knew he had something.

From a great article in Chicago Magazine:

Obama was buoyed, however, by the hordes of reporters and well-wishers who descended on him as he walked around the streets of Boston on Monday with his close friend Martin Nesbitt. "I said to Barack, ‘You know this is pretty unbelievable, man-you're like a rock star,'" Nesbitt recalls. "He said, ‘Yeah, but it might be a little worse tomorrow.' I said, ‘Really? Why do you say that?'" Nesbitt recalls that Obama then smiled and replied: "It's a pretty good speech."

It was a pretty good speech.

It was a piece of history. And it wasn't just the red state/blue state part that was memorable. The entire speech is damn near poetry.

"I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.

I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us."

Read the article I linked above. Go back and watch that speech now, and think about how far this man, and this country, have come in four short years. It's seventeen minutes of history, and you'll be glad you took the time.

Here's Part One.

Here's Part Two.

We have come far, and yet, my friends, we still have work to do. Let's get to work.

$4.25

$4.25 a gallon. That was the price of gas this morning at the station down our street. For the cheap stuff! Premium gas is up around $4.50 or even higher. And I saw diesel being sold for $5.01 late last week.

Our esteemed president has no idea how to fix it. Hell, he didn't even know it was happening. On February 28th, this exchange happened during a press conference:

Q What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing --

THE PRESIDENT: Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?

Q A number of analysts are predicting --

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yeah?

Q -- $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.

THE PRESIDENT: That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.

Stupid little man.

Three

So the lad turned three years old this weekend.

We went down to Oregon for a big ol' party with his favorite cousin, who celebrated her fifth birthday last week, too. The theme was Mexican - it was a fiesta of sorts, with Mexican food and Mexican beer. Our hosts made "burrito" cakes for the birthday kids. The burrito was pretty clever - the inside was a jellyrolled cake. The "tortilla" was ganache, rolled into an oblong shape and draped over. The "salsa" was made with strawberries, with bits of banana and kiwi for color.

They even made a piñata. (Rule #1 for anyone who ever wants a piñata at any sort of party: always make sure that you a stick strong enough to handle some bashing. The kids were using a plastic broom handle, and it bent before the piñata dented. Eventually, we had to resort to a wooden shovel handle.


Oliver had a blast. Because we were on the road for his birthday, he didn't get his big birthday present until we came home. I don't want to speak for Oliver, but I think it was worth the wait.



I'm going to have to write another post in depth about what it means that he's three. He has changed so much in a year that I can't even grasp all of the changes. He's a little person now. We can talk to him, he can carry grocery bags out of the car, he comments on our conversations.

He's a big boy now. It's preposterous to call him my baby anymore, and yet I still get to carry him sometimes to his bedroom, draped over my arms. And sometimes, I sing him lullabies to get him to sleep just like in the early days. And sometimes, when I lay down in his big boy bed and watch him fall asleep with his arm slung over me, I just watch him. I watch my baby as his gentle breaths come and go, his tiny lips moving slightly with each breath. And I see the adult that he will become, and I see the baby he is and he always will be. He's an amazing person, this thing of wonder, this boy of mine, my beautiful son Oliver.

Wonder - Colin Meloy

P.S. I have more pictures on Flickr (see the right column to see a couple more previews.) You can go here to see 'em. Some of the pictures will not be visible unless you're on my friends list, so if I know you and you know me, email me and I'll get you on the guest list.

Scaredy Cat Superdelegates

Look at that number, up in the top right corner of this blog.

Look at the number of superdelegates who are still uncommitted, the day after Obama wrapped up the nomination.

The number, right now, is 144.5. (That includes at least one person from Florida or Michigan who only gets a half vote, so it's actually higher than that.)

They actually have a candidate of the party, and they're still too chickenshit to cast their lot with Obama.

Gutless fucking wonders.

That number will tick down today, and tick down more by the end of this week, but those people ought to be publicly shamed for refusing to take a stand in what is surely the most contentious Democratic nominating process we'll see in our lifetimes. We can call them the Mugwump Brigade, because the Chickenshit Brigade (the name they deserve) won't make it on the radio, and will never be reprinted in a newspaper or on a t-shirt.

It is because of their sniveling cowardice that this race dragged on so long. If they had made their voices heard a month ago, this never would have gone to June 2nd. This would have been a done deal. But instead, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton got another month or two to bash away at Obama. Thank you very fucking much.

The only people who have any excuse not to have endorsed yet are the top echelon of party leaders - people like Jimmy Carter (who now has endorsed Obama) and Al Gore, who were holding back their endorsements so they could play peacemaker in case the nomination process got out of hand.

But the rest of them suck. They completely suck. They're a bunch of knock-kneed bedwetting chickenshit cowards, and you can quote me on that.

It's Over

TPM reports that he's a dozen delegates away from claiming the nomination.

This is an amazing moment, people. The Democratic nominee is going to be a second-generation American with an African father and a white American mother.

Barack Obama is going to be the nominee of my party.

Like my son, the nominee of the party is going to be a mixed-race kid with a funny last name.

Oliver is going to watch Barack Obama giving speeches all summer and fall. God willing, we'll see him in person again, when he comes out to Washington to stump for Darcy Burner and the other local Dems.

Barack Obama is going to be the nominee of my party. And if everything goes the way it should, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

I have tears in my eyes right now.

Delegate Count - Checkmate

The AP is reporting that, based on public endorsements and private commitments, Obama now has enough delegates to claim the nomination.

There have been too many delegate announcements today to track. (You can watch them roll in by going here - it's easier to send you to their site than for me to steal borrow their data and pretend it's mine.)

I will note that my former Massachusetts state Rep, John Olver, was one of the announced supes today. Good to see he's still serving the people of western Mass. after all these years.

Obama's set to collect at least three, and as many as nine, Montana SD endorsements as soon as he claims victory in this state. I think it's over tonight.

Delegate Count - 39.5 to Go

This was a big day, folks.

Supes today:

Connecticut State Chair Nancy DiNardo

Virginia DNC member Jerome Wiley Segovia

Louisiana Party Chair Chris Whittington

Michigan DNC member Brenda Lawrence

Michigan DNC member Lu Battaglieri

NY DNC member Irene Stein

Florida DNC member Janee Murphy

Washington DNC member David McDonald

Also, a couple of John Edwards' delegates have been moved into Obama's column.
But the biggest news of the day, superdelegate-wise, was SC Representative Jim Clyburn - the #3 Democrat in the House. He endorsed Obama, and began making his own phone calls to superdelegates on Obama's behalf.

I think that all adds up to the total you see above.

Now, the superdelegate count might all be moot, because there are myriad rumors that Hillary Clinton is winding up her campaign tomorrow. She's scheduled a "major press conference" tomorrow in New York City, to which she's invited many of her big supporters and donors. Will she fold up her tent tomorrow? I won't believe it until she does it.

Delegate Watch - WTF?!?!?

A lot happened this weekend. Let's review.

On Friday, Obama needed 41 delegate votes to clinch the nomination; Clinton needed 244. That was before Michigan and Florida were settled.

On Saturday, Michigan and Florida were settled by the Rules and Bylaws Committee. There's a million stories about what happened, so go read one of those if you want details. The long and the short of it is that Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida. The magic number of total delegates moved to 2118, now that Michigan and Florida's delegates are reinstated.

Please note that the delegate decision was made not by the Supreme Court or by Obama's campaign, but by the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee. Both Obama and Clinton had supporters on that committee. So I don't want to hear a lot of whining about how Obama stole delegates or how this was unfair and undemocratic. There was a fair hearing, and a decision was made. In America, we honor the people who make the rules and we stand by the rulings.

After Saturday's decision on MI and FL, Obama needed 64 delegates to reach the number of delegates needed, while Clinton needed 240.5.

Supes: Obama appears to have picked up two: Maine add-on Gwethalyn Phillips and Nevada DNC member Yvonne Gates. Al Wynn, an Obama supe, resigned his seat. So Obama wins two, loses one delegate, and the total number of delegates needed drops by one to 2117.

Puerto Rico: Clinton won 68-32%. She gets 38, he gets 17.

The count: Obama has 2071 delegates. Clinton has 1914.5.

Obama needs 46 to clinch. Clinton needs 202.5 delegates to win the nomination.

There are 234 delegates not yet pledged. Clinton would need to get 86% of those delegates in order to win.

Obama needs less than 20% in order to win.

Montana and South Dakota, the two remaining primary states, have a grand total of 31 delegates between them. If Hillary Clinton sweeps the states and wins every single one of the remaining primary delegates, she would still need to garner over 80% of the 203 superdelegates remaining. She can sweep both states and the math only changes infinitesimally.

Got all that?

(I hope this has been helpful to someone. If nothing else, it's helped me to keep all the numbers straight. I'll be so relieved once Obama hits the final number and he can officially claim victory.)

Delegate Watch - 41 to Go

Hillary Clinton picked up one delegate yesterday.

Obama picked up four.

(You'll note that she needs this math to be reversed if she has any hope - which she doesn't - of claiming the nomination.)

His count stands at 1984 - 41 delegates away from the nomination. (Her count stands at 1781, and she needs 244 delegates to win the nomination. There are only 277 delegates who are not spoken for, and that only includes 191 superdelegates. You do the math.)

I won't be able to keep this updated until Sunday, but DemConWatch is an excellent source of delegate news. (Congrats to them for being selected to attend the actual DemCon in Denver.)

Cheers, y'all.

June - The Best Month for Music

Three of my favorite artists are releasing new albums this month. (And, as it happens, all three of them are currently on EMusic. I think I'll be able to get each album the day it's released in record stores - although there are good arguments for picking up each one as a physical CD.)


As mentioned earlier, My Brightest Diamond will be releasing A Thousand Shark's Teeth on June 17. (And there's just nothing else I can about Shara Worden without qualifying for a restraining order.) This album will be one for the ages.


The mysterious and brilliant band Shearwater is coming out with Rook on June 3. (Two new tracks, "Rooks" and "Leviathan, Bound," can be heard here.)

If you don't know these folks, you should. Start out with their magnificent album Palo Santo, which was released in 2006, and re-released (in a 2 CD expanded edition) last year by Matador Records. Here's a great live performance of "Red Sea, Black Sea," featuring the wildest abuse of a tambourine ever captured on video.






My Morning Jacket is coming out with their eagerly anticipated follow up to the mindblowing Z on June 10th. It's called Evil Urges. If you caught them on SNL, you know that this one's going to be good. And if you didn't, you can check out the title track in their corner of MySpaceland. (Check out the falsetto that Jim James unfurls - sexy!!!)

Delegate Count - 45 to Go

One more supe today - Oregon DNC Member Wayne Kinney has endorsed Obama.

That puts him at a nice even 1980. 45 delegates to go.

Delegate Count - 46 to Go

DemConWatch credits Obama with picking up another delegate - DNC Ben Pangelinan (Guam).

They also list that a supe, DNC Kevin Rodriguez (VI), has switched back from Obama to Clinton.

They list Obama's count at 1979, leaving him 46 short of the nomination. I'll go with that number, even though it doesn't jibe with my previous post. So the count is now 1979 delegates.

Edit: I missed two superdelegates - Oregon Democratic Chair Meredith Wood Smith and Colorado Democratic Chair Pat Waak. That's how we get to 1979.

Delegate Countdown - 48 to Go

Today, superdelegate and Wyoming Democratic Party Vice Chair Nancy Drummond endorsed Barack Obama for President, citing his advocacy for veterans.

As of this moment, Barack Obama has 1977 delegates. He needs 2025 in order to claim the candidacy. With Drummond's support he now needs just 48 delegates in order to be the nominee.

I'll try to keep a running update on the countdown. I've stopped fretting about Hillary stealing the nomination. Hold on tight, kiddies - this thing is almost over.

Flamingos!

We have a membership to the Woodland Park Zoo, and so we got to see the members' preview
of the new flamingos today. Oliver has been excited for weeks to see them, so we were in line as soon as the zoo opened.

They're amazingly odd creatures. Sure, we all see the lawn ornaments and we know they're pink. But it's one thing to know it and another to see that odd cotton-candy pinkness on actual real feathers. Their feet are Miami Vice pink. Their ankles (which look like they should be knees) are red. They are truly odd creatures.



Unfortunately, the flamingos seemed a bit bewildered at their new surroundings, and didn't do much at all except this. That is, they stood around in a big huddle for hours. Occasionally, one would stretch its luxurious wings and everyone would furiously try to snap a picture. Or a couple would peck and honk at each other.

But aside from that, they just stood around, looking vaguely embarrassed. Their bathing pond sat before them, unused.

So we watched them for all of fifteen minutes before Oliver got bored. We ended up stumbling into their fantastic display of protected birds, and saw some truly amazing creatures, including these Asian cranes.


We stopped by the flamingos on the way out and saw that they had attracted neighbors. A couple of neighborhood ducks decided that if the flamingos wouldn't use their pond, they'd make themselves comfortable. (The flamingo display is open-air, so other birds are welcome to drop in. I asked one of the docents how the flamingos could be trusted not to fly away, and he explained with a wince that their wings had been clipped by the collector who donated them to the zoo. "If we acquired our own flamingos, we probably wouldn't clip them.")


The ducks seemed to be the stimulus that the flamingos needed: they finally started acting lively, flapping their wings and honking agitatedly. The tight formation started breaking up, although by the time we left, none of them had dared to try and take the pond back from the ducks.

Despite the lackluster opening day, Oliver seemed excited to have flamingos in his home town. We're looking forward to seeing them once they've made themselves at home in their new surroundings.

Matt Baldwin is a very funny guy. Right!

Matt Baldwin, belatedly, on the Eliot Spitzer saga:

Well, my opinion on scandals of this nature has remained fairly consistent throughout my adult, political life: I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT OLD WHITE GUYS HAVING SEX SO STOP TRICKING ME INTO DOING SO! I don't want to think about Spitzer having sex, or Larry Craig having sex, or Gray Davis having sex, or Jerry Falwell having sex, or Bill Clinton having something that was not strictly sex pursuant to the legal definition provided in statute §§21050, etc. I don't care who or what they are having sex with because thinking about this aspect of the sex would involve thinking about the sex, which, as I have stated previously, I do not wish to do. Please, can we just assign a taxpayer-funded hooker to every member of congress to ensure that these liaisons become so routine that they are no longer newsworthy?

If you don't read Defective Yeti, you should feel terrible about all the funniness you've been missing up to this point in your life. Go there now so you can catch up.

Edwards Endorses Obama

It's official, of course. See the video here.

Read the analysis here, there, and everywhere.

My wildly speculative comments, with regards to this being the beginning of the endgame, still stand. It's clear, from Edwards' kind words about Clinton, that he's trying to close the primary in a way that Hillary can hold her head high. All that stuff about how her campaign made Obama a stronger candidate? He just handed Hillary a thumbnail sketch of her concession speech - should it ever come.

Edwards Endorsement Rumored ... Suggested ... Expected

The internet is alive with speculation that John Edwards will endorse Obama this afternoon (west coast time - 7 pm Eastern time.)

Edwards has been on the sidelines of this fight for a very long time, and my instinct tells me that this isn't a random event. I wonder if this is a very deliberate strategic decision to end the primary (which, for all intents and purposes, is already over) by getting the heavyweight Dems into Obama's corner.

If that's the strategy, expect an announcement within days that either Al Gore or Jimmy Carter is also endorsing Obama.

I'm totally pulling this out of my ass, so don't assume that I have any inside sources or special knowledge. I am so not that guy.

Summer Soundtrack: My Brightest Diamond

I'm completely rocking out to the new song by My Brightest Diamond. It's everything that makes Shara Worden great: her soaring voice, fuzzed-out rock guitars (louder and crunchier this time). Plus there's a string section that roars and thunders (think of the string section on Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir"). The lyrics are swirling and mystifying, poetic in the best possible way.

God, what a great song. Here, have a listen.

Inside a Boy

The remix by Son Lux turns the original inside-out in astonishing fashion. Pitchfork describes the remix (and the remixer):

Son Lux's Ryan Lott brings a composer's craft to the techniques of underground hip-hop, and his chopped-up "Inside a Boy" charts a similar path. The string-draped original has drama and grandeur enough, but Lott dismembers the rhythm section, opening with little more than skittering strings, stabs of electronic percussion, piano, and Worden's pristine voice. Other rumbling beats, muscular guitars, and all manner of additional orchestration soon return, but the context is more abstract and disorienting than on the album version. "We crash like lightning into love," Worden sings, repeating the word until all is full of that stuff. Boy meets girl, song goes supernova.

God, I cannot wait to hear the rest of this album. And, if she follows the pattern she set with Tear It Down, there will be plenty more remixes of her new stuff.




For those who also worship at the altar of My Brightest Diamond, there's a preview of her new record here.

NPR Music

Tony Stark: Behind the Music

Saw "Iron Man" on Saturday.

It was one of the best comic adaptation movies I've ever seen. And yes, I've seen the latest Superman (via Bryan Singer) and Batman (via Christopher Nolan) movies. It was better than Superman Returns, and very close to topping Batman Begins.

Superhero movies typically take one of two paths: they work hard on the effects, to the detriment of the plot and character development, or vice versa. It's very hard to get both the effects and the characters right. This is a damn shame, because to get a great comic right, you have to get both parts balanced perfectly.

Effects are clearly important. Comics are the realm of the imaginary. It's easier to draw an adamantium claw or an invisible force field or a repulsor ray on a page than it is to create one on the big screen that looks convincing. The best movies can be killed in an instant if the effects are wrong. They can be too hokey (see the 80's Spider Man tv show) or rely on CGI to create comic-realistic effects that look slick yet inhuman (see any of the recent Spider Man movies).

When you're talking about superheroes, it matters if their powers are believable. But all of the best comic characters rely not on a great power, but a great story. I grew up on Marvel comics, so I'm talking about the guilt that Peter Parker carried, forever haunted by the death of his beloved Uncle Ben that he could have prevented. I knew about the tensions between each member of the Fantastic Four - the complicated family dynamics, the relationship drama, the jealousies that flew in every direction. I knew from Frank Miller's brilliant run on Daredevil that Matt Murdock was a lonely and haunted man, his faith in both God and humanity shaken at the core. I knew that Tony Stark was an alcoholic and a troubled man.

The best comics are about people, not effects. I saw the first Fantastic Four movie, and what I remember was Ben Grimm, the Thing, stopping a bus with his shoulder. I should have remembered the awkward tension between Reed Richards and Sue Storm, but instead I remember being blown away by the way that Mr. Fantastic's arm slipped under a door like liquid. They got the effects right, but they missed getting the characters right.

The Iron Man movie gets Tony Stark perfectly. He is a dynamo of raw energy - creative, sexual, charismatic in the extreme. He is essentially hollow, bouncing like a pinball from one affair to another, one dance club to another, with nothing to anchor him in the world. He is someone we've already met before - the millionaire playboy, rich without seeming to have earned it, famous without seeming to deserve it. He is rich because of technology that kills people across the world. His livelihood relies on the myth that military technology saves lives.

In a moment, his life changes. He channels his brilliance into fighting for good - truth! justice! the American Way! With a healthy dose of revenge (a bit stomach-churning) mixed in for good measure. He is a damaged man who tilts awkwardly toward goodness. He is not perfect. He is not heroic, yet he is a hero.


The movie shows Tony Stark in all his muddy brilliance. He is not made to be someone admirable. Often, he is unpleasant and piggish, greedy and libidinous, even after his transformation. He mistreats the people who work for him. And yet, even against all of this, he becomes a hero. "Iron Man" is a story of redemption, of triumph against the most relentless demons. "Iron Man" is a hopeful movie about humanity.


And no one could have played this part but Robert Downey Jr. He makes Tony Stark come alive - the genius and the self-destructive behavior come alive in every glance, every gesture, every line that he speaks (often muttering, as if speaking to himself throughout the movie). He is given a cast strong enough to stand up to his relentless performance - established actors like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terence Howard fill out the cast.)

And about those special effects? Brilliant. The technology kicks serious ass. As I said earlier, comics are as much about the visual effects as they are about the plot. "Iron Man" requires a man who is brilliant with technology, the kind of guy who can build a doomsday suit in the middle of a desert. The suit has to look like a technological marvel, but one we can believe. The director, Jon Favreau, pulls it off by relying on "live" effects over CGI whenever possible. Tony Stark is a billionaire, after all - he can afford the best tools available, and he uses them in brilliant and unexpected ways. Half of the fun is watching "the suit" come together - the trials, the spectacular failures, and the breathtaking successes. (Note: there is a robot that provides some of the funniest moments of the movie, without saying a word.)


So yeah - go see this movie. And stick around through the credits - there's an extra treat that you won't want to miss.