Sunday 7 May--Deron Lee
Monday 8 May--Chris 'Leeroy' Lee; Thomas Ruggles Pynchon; Harry S. Truman
Happy day to all.
And what middle name tops Ruggles?
again, Feliz Compleaños
Speaking of Spanish, we had some fun the other night, the 5th of May, with a pretty fun crew--Jesse, Nathan, Scott, and Haley Harrison. Now Haley is about to graduate from KU (congratulations!), and you may be wondering what she's up to: here's a clip from Friday's KUJH broadcast, anchored by the talented Ms Harrison, which also discusses the 5th of May:
KUJH, if you're wondering, is the KU tv station. And Haley, if you're wondering, is off to DC soon, where her knowledge of things political should serve her well as she starts her internship with Kansas 3rd district US Representative Dennis Moore.
That Hispanic American Leadership Organization (mentioned in Haley's story), by the way, did a fund-raiser recently which involved selling us some absolutley delicious tamales. Damn good stuff.
Finally, the Economist ran an excellent series on 'New Media' recently. They discuss, among other things, the advent and explosive popularity of blogging (see graph), the wiki phenomenon, the rise of podcasts, and the impact of all of those on the mainstream media (or 'MSM,' as the kids call it).
An excellent Economist setup and zinger, from the piece on wikis:
Somebody who reads Wikipedia is “rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom,” says Mr McHenry, Britannica's former editor. “It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.” One wonders whether people like Mr McHenry would prefer there to be no public lavatories at all.
The straight version of that sentiment appears in the concluding article:
Generally speaking, people who have faith in democracy welcome participatory media, whereas people who have reservations will be nostalgic for the top-down certainties of the mass media.
A good bit of reading (8 stories in all), but very interesting stuff--start reading here.
Oh, by the way, the song now playing is from Neil Young's new protest album, Living with War.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the best song ever, but I like that he's so pissed.
The feed is via NPR. I thank them, and I hope my embedding the clip still counts as 'fair use.'
I know Haley will appreciate the publicity. Of course I can't get the video to play here ...
ReplyDeleteFor another political fight song apropos of the upcoming midterms, check out "The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat)" from the new Flaming Lips album.
Thanks for the birthday shout-out, but where's my *@#*-in' card?
In fact, I had trouble with the video on my office computer too; hopefully I've fixed it now.
ReplyDeleteI haven't yet heard all of that WAND song, though I do like the lyrics (especially that line 'it's all made of rights'); and I really enjoy The Yeah Yeah Yeah song; maybe I'll switch to that track soon. For those who can't wait and can't afford the CD, you can listen to it on the Flaming Lips website.
As for the b-day card, um, how about we'll get you a G & T when you're in town for HOH's graduation?
My pleasure, Ms Harrison; we enjoyed seeing you, and, by the bye, I'm looking forward to that jazz CD. . . .
Hey Yancy, et al! Its the future Mrs Lee!
ReplyDeleteI was looking over referral links in my sitemeter, and I saw that someone in NY visited my blog by entering my name in a search engine. Curious, I clicked on the referral link. The search results also contained a link to your blog, as my name is in it. (We also loved seeing you in Chicago!) So I thought I'd stop by and say hey!
Haley, if you're reading this: I love seeing that clip of you doing your newscaster thang! You're good! And those Lee Boys are so uninformative--I have to read your blog to find out you have an internship in DC. Awesome news! Congratulations on graduation and your internship, etc. IF you're not, then someone tell her I said hi.
And hi to Emily and Deron, too! Chris passed along my Birthday greetings? Hope so.
Also, if you don't like dark humor, don't read my blog. Its mostly stupid stuff floating around in my brain, but it can be irreverent at times. (I cuss.) I say, why not use the internet to ruin my future presidential career? My grandmother's going to find out I say "Shit" some day, right?