Month: January 2006

From yesterday’s New York Times Magazine:

No court alone can do the job of protecting liberty from the exercise of executive power. For that most important of tasks, the people’s elected representatives need to be actively involved. When we let them abdicate this role, the violations start to multiply, and we get the secret surveillance and the classified renditions and the unnamed torture that we all recognize as un-American. Our Constitution has changed enormously over the last two centuries, and it is sure to change much more in the future. Just how it changes, though, is up to us.

Feldman details how presidential power has increased and changed over the centuries since the framing of the Constitution. He points out that “the framers would no sooner have been governed by a democratically elected president than by a king who got his job through royal succession.” (He also does a good job of explaining why the 2nd ammendment really isn’t about guns, but was rather a safety-check against the fear “that a standing army at the president’s beck and call would encourage him to subvert legislative independence by force”.)

But he also offers solutions for a re-assertion of Congressional authority — something that’s vitally important when we have a sitting President who continues to thumbs his nose at the very idea of that authority, when he continues to think of himself and his administration as above the law. Bush didn’t invent the idea of the independent president, the chief executive with the authority to act without the approval of Congress. But he’s taken it to an absurd and dangerous level.

John is right: the time has come for Bush supporters to explain how George W. Bush is not a dictator.

At the very least, it’s time for our elected officials to start reining him in and holding him accountable.

I sent this out by e-mail just now, to all of my past mix CD exchange participants:

So here’s what I’ve decided to do.

I’m going to have another mix CD exchange, same as always. I won’t impose any set themes or music restrictions. I won’t limit the number of participants. What I will do, however, is split the exchanges up into smaller concurrent groups — so that, if we have a group of ten, five people will share CDs among themselves while five other people do the same separately, simultaneously.

The split will be more or less random. If you would like to receive more than five mixes, you are free to participate in more than one group. If need be, I will fiddle with the randomness of the split to ensure that no one gets the same mix CD twice.

Please take this time to let me know if you would like to participate. If you would like to suggest another participant, or share the idea with a friend, please do so. They may contact me directly, if they would like. If you will be sending multiple CDs — and, more importantly, if you only wish to receive one copy of the other mixes in return — please let me know that, too. (For the married couples who wish to participate, this means you.)

I think I can manage to scrounge together at least ten people, including myself, to participate. This will mean at least two groups of five. Since I would like the groups to be more or less even, the final number of discs will depend on the final number of participants. I may ask everyone for six CDs, or I may ask for four, depending on that final number and the division involved. I will not, however, ask for any more or fewer than that. Please keep that in mind when deciding if you want to play: if you’re in one group, that’s 4-6 discs; if you’re in two, that’s 8-12; and so on.

Please send me your answer and details no later than Friday, January 20. That’s one week from this coming Friday. I need a yes or no. I need to know how many discs you’re sending and want to get back. And I need to know how many groups you want to be in.

Once I hear from everyone and have a final number of participants, I will break that number into the smaller subgroups. I may keep secret whose mixes you’re receiving, but after the fact I will be happy to work out one-for-one exchanges for any CDs you didn’t get. (I expect to participate in more than one group myself, and as the go-between I’ll have an opportunity to sneak a listen to all the CDs.) You may not get a CD you wanted, or you may not get to share with someone whose musical tastes you like. But hopefully you’ll be able to figure out what you missed (and snag a copy) from reading the discussion posts on my weblog after the exchange.

I hope this doesn’t sound half as complicated as it looks. I think this should solve the problem some of you have had with the past exchanges — namely, that there’s simply too much music being shared — while not shutting out those of you who didn’t care, or who want all of those mix CDs. This way, you should be able to get a lot, or only a few. Logistically, it’s a little more complicated…but probably only for me. For everyone else, the rules are the same: make your mix, burn copies of your mix, send me your copies and money for postage, and I send you copies of other mixes in exchange.

Sound good? Not too complicated? I didn’t lose any of you a few paragraphs back, did I? Okay, then. I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.

If you’re one of my few long-time readers who hasn’t participated before, and you’d like to, please let me know. It’s been a lot of fun in the past.

In a link to the for music video for the New Pornographers’ song “Use It” (pretty funny in and of itself), Adam Finley of TV Squad writes:

I’m not sure why bands even make videos anymore, since they’re rarely seen by a mass audience, and those that do see them probably catch them at like 3 a.m. on MTV2.

I haven’t watched MTV with any regularity since the mid-’90s, and that was only to catch episodes of Aeon Flux and The Maxx, but I do think he’s got a point. I don’t think music videos have become obsolete as a marketing tool — and there were bands making videos before 1981, after all — but it does seem to have become much more of a niche market. Viewers are much more likely to download videos from band websites or services like iTunes, and that means they’re more likely to be seen by people who already like the band and/or the song. There’s still some very innovative and fun stuff being done with the genre, but it does seems very unlikely that music videos are going to bring the sort of mass audience to a band they used to be able to.

And you know, to be honest, I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing. As music videos grow less important as a marketing tool, we may hopefully see less of the so-called MTV-style on television and in the movies. As there are fewer opportunities for mass success with the style, we may see fewer “auteurs” like McG — who, from what I’ve seen of his two (pretty awful) Charlie’s Angels movies and Fastlane TV show, has never once directed anything but a music video.

Once again, the Friday Random 10:

  1. “What’s a poor boy from Canada to do?”
    “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)” by Warren Zevon, guessed by Betty
  2. “The kiss my lover brings, she brings to me.”
    “And I Love Her”, the Beatles, guessed by John
  3. “I got a certan little girl she’s on my mind.”
    “Hush” by Kula Shaker (or Deep Purple), guessed by Eric
  4. “Seventeen tracks and I’ve had it with this game.”
    “Somebody Told Me” by the Killers, guessed by Betty
  5. “Just need a little brain salad surgery.”
    “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Doctor John, guessed by Kim
  6. “He’ll rekindle all the dreams it took you a lifetime to destroy.”
    “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, guessed by Glen
  7. “There’s a room where the light won’t find you.”
    “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Tears for Fears, guessed by John
  8. “I spin my wheels and try to figure it out.”
    “Push” by Smash Mouth
  9. “I’ve fallen apart, since the ambush of your heart.”
    “Life Less Ordinary” by Carbon Leaf
  10. “Memory seeps from my veins.”
    “Angel” by Sarah MacLachlan, guessed by Betty

I’ve also posted the answers (guessed and not guessed) for last week’s lyrics and the week before. Best of luck guessing these new ones!

Incidentally, I’m still looking for good podcast recommendations. I read on the train and listen to music, but I have a 15-20 minute walk twice a day and like to walk around midtown during my lunch hour if the weather’s bearable. I’m looking for something to listen to other than music.

And finally, someone suggested I post another iPod-related meme, my top five played songs. I feel safe doing that since none of them turned up in this week’s lyrics. (See the hints I give you!) According to iTunes, what I listen to more than anything are:

“The Best of Jill Hives” by Guided By Voices
“And She Was” by Talking Heads
“Will it Go Round in Circles” by Billy Preston
“Galang” by M.I.A.
“Bust a Move” by Young MC

600 seconds is a group weblog and daily writing exercise to which I belong. The idea is pretty simple: a writing prompt, or topic, is posted every day, and everyone writes on that topic for ten minutes (no less). There are no rules or restrictions on what you can write, or what genres and styles you adopt. To participate, all you need is a Blogger account and ten minutes to spare each day.

It’s been a little quiet there lately, and one of my New Year’s resolutions is to try to change that. So I’m looking for new members (or I’m not so subtly nudging some of the old who read this blog). Let me know if you’re interested. The best way to get a sense of the place is to check out the earlier archives and see what people have written, but I’ll be happy to try to answer any questions.

My theory is, anything that gets people writing is a good thing.