Some Rage, Some Facts, and Something For Our Nerves

(photo by Robert Stolarik for The New York Times)

Hey, remember Rage Against the Machine? I know Marisa does (Hi Ryan!). Saw them in the news the other day. I guess they had protest shows at both conventions. Ran into some entertaining trouble outside the RNC, according to the Times:

On Tuesday [2 September] a five-band protest concert was scheduled on the lawn of the State Capitol above St. Paul. Near the end of the day the four members of Rage pulled up and were immediately surrounded by the police. The band members were told that they were not going to take the stage because they were not on the bill — but there were no bands listed on the permit. And so the four members of the band walked out into the crowd, which was chanting, “Let them play!,” and someone handed them a megaphone. With the guitarist Tom Morello vocalizing instrumental interludes, Mr. de la Rocha did two songs: “Bulls on Parade” and “Killing in the Name.” The crowd surged around the band and filled in the musical gaps.

Too cool and/or funny to be true? There's video evidence . . .

Oh what the hell, here's the album cut:




Speaking of politics, it's amusing to note that when the McCain folks accused Obama of mis-stating the facts, and credited factcheck.org, that group issued a statement saying that McCain was mis-stating their claims . . . sigh.
(Thanks, Deron. And while I'm at it, thanks for the comment, Deron and Haley. We miss you too! Come visit Seattle!)


Finally, for those of us worried by recent election news, The Stranger ran a recent column outlining some treatment options.



Here are my personal favorites:

PALINIUM
Effects: Induces a Valium-like calm with respect to all things Sarah Palin and predisposes the mind to recall that she has only been on the national stage a few minutes and yet already has a pattern of political falsehoods, a knocked-up daughter pressed into a shotgun relationship, a cadre of small-town enemies crawling out of her closet, and an abuse-of-power investigation in her home state that's being run, helpfully, by a Democrat. While on Palinium, you will be soothed by repeated waves of placidity and feel certain that all of these Palin vulnerabilities will somehow lead to a Republican-ticket implosion within the next few weeks.

CELLEXA
Recommended dosage: Four pills once a week or as needed depending on friends' moods and tracking-poll consumption.

Effects: Encourages the following response to any apocalyptic discussion of negative poll numbers: "Yeah, but pollsters can't reach people who have only cell phones. And most young voters have only cell phones, not land lines, and young people as a group are overwhelmingly in favor of Barack Obama, and therefore these new poll numbers probably aren't as bad as they seem... Okaybye... Text you later."

Possible side effects: Cancerous brain tumors.

BRADLEY EFFEXOR
Recommended dosage: Twice daily in last two weeks of October and three times daily in first week of November. As needed until then.

Effects: Much like ecstasy, this drug floods the brain with serotonin, producing a sensation that the world is full of love, that this love resides within all of us, that it is present now, that the patient can feel it (and is perhaps aroused by it), and that therefore no one would ever tell a pollster that he or she is voting for a black man and then go into a voting booth and, out of coldhearted racism and weasely cowardice, vote for the old white guy.

ELECTRO-COLLEGE SHOCK THERAPY
Recommended dosage: For use only in extremely persistent cases of acute election-related anxiety, and to be administered only by trained professionals.

Effects: Via electric current through brain and shouted commands audible to patient during treatment, recipient of Electro-College Shock Therapy learns, once and for all, that nothing matters except for the Electoral College vote totals—not the popular vote, not the national polls, nothing, nothing, nothing but the Electoral College vote totals. Patient also is implanted with the indelible memory that Barack Obama has led John McCain in projected Electoral College vote totals for the entire race so far.

Possible side effects: Incapacitating obsession with polling data from states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and others.

WEST VIAGRA
Recommended dosage: 16 mg at first sign of despair over chances of Democrat winning White House.

Effects: Strong confidence in the idea that demographic changes in the Mountain West, and a startling increase in elected Democrats in the region over the last 10 years, mean that Barack Obama will win Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada—and maybe even Montana and Arizona, too—thus triggering a landslide Obama victory that will make even Ronald Regan's corpse jealous.

Possible side effects: Impulse to wear Carhartt jackets and large belt buckles, attraction to people who look like Jon Tester.

INTERNETSAPRO
Recommended dosage: One pill whenever an effective John McCain advertisement comes out.

Effects: Patient will recall, for a minimum of six hours straight, that Barack Obama is doing something with the internet that no other politician in American history has ever done before, and will further recall that Obama has raked in, and will continue to rake in, a ton of money off the internet—money that can be used to bury John McCain in pro-Obama advertisements in the closing weeks of the campaign. Patient will also remember that Obama has more friends on Facebook than anyone, ever, or something like that, and that these types of opportunities for direct communication with voters give Obama a huge advantage and help him continue to build a campaign that is more like a mass grassroots movement than anything else.

Possible side effects: internet addiction, mounting credit-card debt from repeated online donations.

(You know, I just did a unit in my ethics class on the morality of finding and reproducing things online, and I still have no idea whether or not it's okay to put that much of that column on my blog . . .)

Hope you feel better soon!