My apologies for the dearth of posts here. I’ve been active on Facebook, which for the moment mostly scratches the blogging itch and takes far less time. I still plan to use this blog for long form posts which don’t really fit the FB format, but as usual, time is the problem. Please feel free to friend me over there, and it won’t hurt to check back here once in a while. I do want to revamp this site once I get a clearer idea where I’m going with a number of projects.

I will keep the gig calendar current, and it is also on my MySpace profile, linked in the left sidebar here.

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I still have tears running down my cheeks from laughing so hard at this video: Boyfriend with Health Benefits. Thanks to Becky DeWit via FB.

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Brilliant: the ennui and existential musings of a cat. YouTube clip embedded on what looks to be an interesting anthropologically oriented blog. Via somebody named Lance whom I don’t know. He posted the link as a Facebook comment to this funny music video by a local band called Nuthatch-47. Thanks to Rebecca for posting the link.

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A couple of people have commented far more cogently than I ever could on the disruption of town hall meetings by angry protesters and the hypocrisy of health care providers fighting reform of the industry. It’s too bad that the meetings are so out of control As Abe Sauer at The Awl concludes, these people are just angry, legitimately so in many ways. Unfortunately, I believe they will be worse off if their protests succeed in derailing health care reform. And the noise makes real debate next to impossible.

A Primer For the Coastal Elite: What Do the Tea Party Folks Want? An on-the-scene report from a rally in North Dakota, with photos. At The Awl.

The Hypocrisy of Healthcare Protesters at Salon.com. Darren Hutchinson of Dissenting Justice guest-blogs at Glenn Greenwald’s spot while the latter is on vacation. So many people have rediscovered the dangers of big government, which they ignored or even supported under George Bush. But really, it’s worth reading for the way it points out that we have nothing like free-market competition in health care as it stands.

My favorite of the many nutty protest signs seen recently? “Get Government out of My Medicare!” You can’t make this stuff up.

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Peter Gabriel and a killer 6-piece band live at Real World Studios.

No Way Out

Growing Up

There's more, but you'll see the links when you're there. I don't know who any of the players are except Tony Levin but, um, wow.

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Okay, time to cheer up. I had forgotten how much I liked rathergood until somebody linked to We Like the Moon today. Hilarious stuff, and I love the punkish aesthetic of their Flash movies. While you’re there, don’t miss the Meatini.

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It’s been a strange weekend. Yesterday I went to Wichita to attend the memorial service for my sister Marty. She died in her sleep, completely unexpectedly, in early June. Because she was in Tanzania (a missionary, she had been there since 2000), it took some time for her husband and daughter to return to the States, so the service was delayed quite a bit. Her husband used a canned website service to quickly put up a memorial for her, which has been the sole source of information for most of us in the meantime.

The woman who organized the service asked eight people to share some memories of Marty at the service. My own thoughts (as written, not exactly what I said) follow after the jump.

It’s a weird weekend for any number of reasons, but not anything I feel like going into here. I do get the feeling that huge changes are in the air, not just for me but for everyone. A feeling that wheels are turning and a new era is coming soon. There are all kinds of reasons I feel this, not just because of my sister or the fact that our celebrities seem to be dying off in droves. Whatever. We shall see. In the meantime, if you feel like reading a few memories of my sister, follow the link below.

Continue reading "for my sister, Marty" »

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