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Showing posts from July, 2005

bookstores and coffeeshops

When I think of: Papyrus Odegaards Shambhala the Hungry Mind what comes to mind are the smells, the narrow aisles, the countless hours I spent in each of these bookstores. There's just something cool...something organic, friendly and particular about the disheveled nature of the local book shop. Of course, none of those listed above exist anymore . A friend of mine, sitting at the family-owned cafe we both like to frequent, said to me: "You know, my financial adviser just told me to invest in... insert name of major coffee chain ... and I'm torn. It'd be a good investment, I'm sure. But wouldn't it drive places like this out of business?" It's an interesting thought. You could be sitting drinking coffee while your portfolio was effectively working to pull the chair out from under you. We can all agree that we love neighborhoods with local bookstores and coffeeshops. And we can all agree, on some level, that local ownership has real advantages.

the zeros: linkin park

Linkin Park , a nu-metal band from Agoura Hills, CA exemplifies the kind of music that can best be summed up as "adolescent angst." Their music, influenced by hip-hop, techno and metal, and whose core audience is young men, has emerged as one of the ubiquitous "sounds" of this decade. Breaking the Habit , a typical Linkin Park song from 2004, mixes pop melodrama, techno beats, and hip hop scratching so buffed and produced that it's pretty much unrecognizable as such. There's no hiding that this is pure radio fare by a band with platinum hits and the resources of a major label behind them. You can check out their neo-noir, multi-media version of the song, and its anime video, here (flash req'd.) The key lyrics are in the chorus: I don't know what's worth fighting for Or why I have to scream I don't know why I instigate And say what I don't mean I don't know how I got this way I know it's not alright So I'm breaking the ha

sound bites

From today's NYT : "The problem is far bigger than gasoline prices tomorrow morning. It is what will be the state of energy in 5 and 10 years from now in the United States. I can tell you, we will be safer. We will have more jobs, we will have an electricity system that is safe and sound. We will have diversity of energy sources and supplies built in our country for us." - Sen. Pete Domenici , R, NM author of the Energy Bill that passed yesterday 74 to 26 in the Senate. "Our nation's energy crisis has reached historic levels. We need policy whose boldness is commensurate with that crisis. But that's not what we're getting. Instead, we're getting a pork-laden, lobbyist-driven dream bill." - Senator John Kerry , D, MA voting in opposition Which guy would you fire?

a brooklyn wedding

The wedding was in the Picnic House , a beautifully-windowed 1920's building in Brooklyn's Prospect Park . The bride and groom, like so many Brooklynites before them, stood beneath a Chuppah and professed their vows. A gorgeous day settled into what became a warm and glorious night. We did what people do at weddings. We ate. We drank. We enjoyed the company of old friends. I danced a cumbia , and got away with it. I attempted a salsa , and got my ass laughed off the floor. It was a good crowd. Yes, present among us were left-wingers....labor organizers, journalists, professors and noted documentarians. But you wouldn't have known that from looking at us. It was like any New York wedding. Kids running around screaming. Sweaty adults weary with laughter and drink. A mix of people. The Picnic House overlooks the Long Meadow of Prospect Park, and I stepped outside onto the terrace to visit with my friend, Tom. It was dark out, and an acrid, burning smell hung in th

cartwheels in the locker room

Robin from Girl in the Locker Room , a fine blog in its own right, sent me a link to Danyel Smith's Naked Cartwheels ....which I hadn't seen before. Combining nyc, hip hop, writing, w/ a wry take on life, cool features like: a Progressive Women Blogger's Ring and a fresh use of visuals...I think you'll like it. (And now you can actually go there with a fuctioning link....argh.)

herzog on the radio

Fresh Air today was about Werner Herzog's new film , Grizzly Man , documenting the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, "amateur grizzly bear expert and wildlife preservationist." Funny thing is, after hearing the piece, I don't want to see the movie, though you might feel differently. Radio was, for me, the perfect medium to take in this challenging subject matter. Herzog is amazing here. Smoky voiced, insightful and, as always, occupying a space somewhere between obsession, malevolence and redemption. A great...uh...listen.

getting to know Grover

Awol points to this must-read interview w/ John Cassidy in the New Yorker online about Cassidy book subject, and GOP behind-the-scenes power broker, Grover Norquist. ( boo, hiss, growl ). Cassidy's advice at the very end is the not-to-be-missed quote: "Democrats need to reach out to some of the groups that Norquist targets. As he points out, gun owners, people who don’t like paying taxes, and people of devout faith add up to more than sixty per cent of the voting population. If the Democrats completely write off these groups, their electoral prospects are poor. And the Democrats need to do a better job of exploiting the divisions and potential divisions within the Republican coalition. Social conservatives and libertarians don’t agree about a lot of things, nor do economic conservatives and poor rural farmers, but Norquist and Rove somehow manage to keep them on the same team. Finally, the Democrats could do with finding a left-wing version of Norquist. She or he must be out

hmm...not exactly how it turned out...

Fellow blogger Speaking as a Scientist delivers some quotes that will make your head spin. Here's one: " a leader must uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which he had been elected. ( applause ) In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal, but what is right. ( applause ) Not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves. ( applause ) In my administration, we'll make it clear there is the controlling legal authority of conscience. ( applause ) We will make people proud again, so that Americans who love their country can once again respect their government. -George W. Bush, Pittsburgh, October, 2000 You think they're still clapping?

they knew

Here's two salient quotes from a significant NYT Story by Neil Lewis on the ongoing revelations about the torture of prisoners under BushCo.and how the Bush Justice Department overrode the advice of its own military: Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives, [advised] the task force that several of the " more extreme interrogation techniques, on their face, amount to violations of domestic criminal law " as well as military law. General Rives added that many other countries were likely to disagree with the reasoning used by Justice Department lawyers about immunity from prosecution. Instead, he said, the use of many of the interrogation techniques " puts the interrogators and the chain of command at risk of criminal accusations abroad. " Rear Adm. Michael F. Lohr, the Navy's chief lawyer, wrote on Feb. 6, 2003, that while detainees at Guantánamo Bay might not qualify for international protections, " Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees

one summer night a year ago

We had one of my favorite exchanges ever on dailykos. Everyone was bickering for, I don't remember what reason, and I wrote this diary.... please . It's all about summer, and memory, and community. Try it. You might like it.

high fructose corn syrup

Is this stuff in everything or what? (This neglected gem from the dailykos plumbs the depths of it.)

props to Cometbus

I don't think I've ever mentioned this.....but if there's one voice I (and many other bloggers, if not blogging in general) owe a lot to it would be: Aaron Cometbus , author of the self-published zine Cometbus . He's doing other things now, but for a while it seemed like wherever I was hanging out, (which often used to be in record shops), there'd be this black and white punk magazine, Cometbus, and I'd buy a copy. Heck, I even found one in French one time. The writing was honest, raw, reflective. It captured a moment, the punk moment. And then kept capturing it. Every issue of Cometbus seemed to get at the core of something: friendship, heartache, music, independence, loss...without really being "about" that, at all. There's a great collection of his work reviewed at Rain Taxi ...check it out, if your interest is piqued...it's a big book, an anthology, and sometimes I'll see cool kids reading a battered copy at the cafe and think: Come

urban democrats for you

Here's list of writers, thinkers, artists and leaders who lived in cities, who embraced the life of cities and their citizens. They are democrats, free thinkers and reformers in the simplest sense of those words: Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Dorothy Day, James Baldwin, Irving Howe, Langston Hughes, Jane Addams, Frederick Douglass, Harvey Milk, Studs Terkel, Lou Reed, Sam Adams, Malcolm X, Horace Mann, Bernard Malamud, Helen Levitt, Bella Abzug, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Fiorello LaGuardia, June Jordan, Emma Goldberg, John Dos Passos, Claude Brown, Diane Arbus, Jim Jarmusch, Joseph Mitchell, Saul Alinsky, Barbara Jordan, Susan Sontag, Hart Crane, Richard Avedon, Spike Lee, Thomas Paine, Ralph Ellison, Sekou Sundiata, Julia Ward Howe, Sidney Lumet, Saul Bellow, Audre Lorde, Jacob Riis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Smith, Lupe Valdez, Walter Reuther, Mike Davis, Jesse Jackson, Alfred Kazin, WEB DuBois, Michael Harrington, Clarence Darrow, Robert Frank, Jane Jacobs, WH Auden, Jaime

letter from an urban democrat

When I walk out my front door, and step into my neighborhood, into the streets of my city, I am greeted with the a scene replicated in cities across this country: a panoply of faces, of races, of styles and fashions, the sounds, the singing, the symphony of urban America. I could be in Oakland, or I could be in Milwaukee. I could be in Philadelphia or Miami. I could be in Houston, in Seattle or Cleveland. I could be in St. Louis, or Atlanta, or Memphis. Each city has its flavor, has its own particular vibe and sights and smells: but if there is one thing I would like to convey to you today it is that for millions of American citizens, these big cities are our home. We love our cities and embrace their diversity. There is something beautiful about it, something fundamentally American in it. I can't tell you what it's like to sit for dinner at Le Cheval, a popular Vietnamese restaurant here in downtown Oakland, and look around the room and realize that, table after table, i

this is kid oakland blog

(or, as you can see above.... k/o ...for short.) My name is Paul Delehanty and I live and work and write in Oakland, California. I've been writing as kid oakland since the first days of scoop at dailykos.com and you may know me from there, or from my participation at blog communities like booman tribune or my left wing . However it may be that you've found your way here...welcome! Think of this blog as a place to find writing from one progressive writer's point of view. I try to keep the links and content here fresh and reflective of the best writing and voices available on the net. Topics of interest include: electoral politics, national and international news stories, and California life mixed with essays and links on music and culture. If you liked my essays on dailykos, you'll find pieces like them here and links to other writers who work in a similar way. Simply put, k/o is a place to find writing by me, kid oakland, all in one place, and links to a whole

holding pattern....test....holding pattern....test.....

Hello....hello...clearly this is a blog in progress, please feel free to click on some of the links to the right if you'd like....and stay posted for some content here on the front. peace and feel free to drop a comment below if you'd like (and thank you to wendell gee, awol and myshkin for their help!!) kid o.