The Great Leap Forward

Liberal Radio - Air America is on!

Finally! I'm listening to Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo now, talking to Atrios - our voices will be heard. Support Air America - tune in!

New York - WLIB 1190 AM

Los Angeles - KBLA 1580 AM

Chicago - WNTD 950 AM

Portland, OR- KPOJ 1620 AM

Inland Empire, CA- KCAA 1050 AM

XM Satellite Radio - Channel 167

San Francisco- To Be Announced

San Jose - To Be Announced

How to stop that evil liberal John Kerry - irritate him!

More dumb shit in the form of political ads from the Committee to Elect George W. Bush Legitimately For Once:

But politics is also personal, and campaign strategists are fond of concocting ways to get under their rivals' skin. "Every good campaign tries to play a little psychological warfare with the other side," said Mike Murphy, the Republican strategist who ran Mitt Romney's campaign in 2002. "While it won't win or lose a campaign, it will help on the margins . . . You want to keep your opponent off-balance psychologically."

Bush aides think that if they push the right buttons, they can knock Kerry off stride given what they have seen of him so far.

"He has a thin skin, and he's demonstrated that for most of his life," said Ron Kaufman, a Bush ally and the Massachusetts committeeman at the Republican National Committee. "It's not just that we can torment Kerry; we're having fun with his entire team because they're all from Boston, and so it reverberates even more sometimes."

This is coming from the man with the thinnest of skins, who can only make appearances in front of friendly or non-English speaking crowds - George W. Bush. (The "W" stands for "Who cares what you think?")

Bonus question: Why does George W. Bush hate freedom?

Other bonus question: Why does the Boston Globe, a supposedly liberal newspaper, hate John Kerry so?

Live365: New stuff at the All Over The Place ranch.

We don't sleep here in AOTPWorld. The playlist is constantly getting tweaked. Songs by the following artists has been added for your listening pleasure:

The Association, Genesis, For Against, Pulp, Belly, Green Day, Her Space Holiday, Piano Magic, The Wolfgang Press, Throwing Muses, Bruce Springsteen, Caetano Veloso, R.E.M., Radiohead, Sting, Salteens, Michael Penn, Damien Rice, Brittle Stars, Yo La Tengo, Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays, The Multiple Cat and Holiday Flyer.

The station is here - click the yellow button to play.

Let me take my chances on The Blog Of Death.

I happened by Margaret Cho's blog today to find an "in memoriam" for comedian Drake Sather (entry for 3/26). I'd read that he committed suicide on March 3, leaving behind a wife and four kids. A summary of his work can be found here, and his entry in obituary blog The Blog Of Death, can be found here.

I wasn't a close follower of the man's career, but I remember his appearance on one of those HBO Young Comedians specials they ran back in the 80s. As I recall, it was a pretty funny set. He went to write for NewsRadio, Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live and the movie Zoolander, among other projects. It's just sad to die so young, y'know?

myLife: The climb gets a little steeper.

Seems like I don't have much to say on the blog of late. Sure, I'm pissed with what's going on. I'm thankful that Richard Clarke is getting a fair hearing. I'm happy to hear that Bush is only polling at 44% in Ohio.

School is eating up a bit of time. I have a paper due on Tuesday that I'm about 25% done with. For my Human Development class, I need to write a paper on cognitive development by evaluating some children's software. I got Clifford The Big Red Dog: Learning Activities (ages 4-6) from Arlene and had a fun time looking at it the other night. I've had a decent amount of homework each week for my two classes, but it hasn't been overwhelming like my first semester.

This Monday, I will do my first observation of the semester at Pleasantville H.S. I was supposed to do two days (10 hours) but I may now have to do three. For the second time since I started at Pace last fall, the rules for completing the advanced certification program have changed. The rule when I started was to perform 10 hours of in-school observation per class. The program consists of seven classes plus a semester of student teaching, so that's 70 hours spent in schools. However, they have now raised the requirement to 100 hours, so I'm going to have to do a lot more than I planned on to make up the deficit. That's bad, because every day I'm in school is a day I'm not working (and making money). Just another reminder that I still have a tough slog ahead of me. 6 weeks to go in this semester. 43 weeks until student teaching starts.

(And if you're wondering, the first change was a new requirement for all graduates to create a 30-document portfolio based on 10 teaching standards - 3 docs for each standard. I don't know much about it except that you can use documents you generated in your classes for this portfolio. One classmate who is a lot closer to finishing than I am cranked out 20 documents over the six-week Christmas break just to get it done. I'm worried that they're going to throw a few more roadblocks at us before it's all over. Factor in that I still have to take two more standard exams [assuming I passed the LAST, which I think I did] and take a course in geometry - man, that's a shitload of work. Looks like I'll be busier than I had counted on this summer.)

readThis: Head from a seal.

Just another normal day in Boston - a man tries to board a plane with a cooler containing the head of a seal:

The head was apparently checked in by a Colorado man in his 40s, officials said. His identity was not released.

The man, who bound for Denver, told investigators that he is a biology professor and that he had found a dead seal on Revere Beach, officials said. He then cut off its head so he could take it home for educational purposes, he told them.

End result - he did not get to keep the head and faces a big fine.

Couldn't he just bring home lobsters like everybody else?

Where are you, Condi?

Back to politics: Richard Clarke tore it up at the 9-11 hearings yesterday. He noted that the Bush Misadministration actually deemphasized terrorism before 9-11:

Clarke testified that the Clinton and Bush administrations approached the terrorist threat in starkly different ways. “Although I continued to say it [terrorism] was an urgent problem, I don’t think it was ever treated that way” by the Bush administration before Sept. 11.

“I dealt directly with the national security advisers in the Clinton administration,” he said, while in the Bush administration, “I was told [that] would be best done with the deputy national security adviser. So I spent less time talking about the problems of terrorism with the national security adviser in this administration.”

Clarke said that in 2001 he sought a “principals’ review” — involving Cabinet secretaries with responsibility for national security — of his request for new budget authority to help fight al-Qaida and proposals to aid for the Northern Alliance, the rebel group fighting to oust the Taliban government of Afghanistan. But “the response was that in the Bush administration I ... should report to the deputies’ committee, which is a sub-Cabinet-level committee, and not to the principals.”

Clarke also offered this stunning apology:

"Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed," he said. "And for that failure, I would ask — once all the facts are out — for your understanding and for your forgiveness."

And for the first time ever, someone involved with Bush apologizes for something. Richard Clarke is a real man, unlike Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush. Not sure about Condi.

Speaking of which, why didn't she testify under oath?

The Bush administration sent Armitage to the hearing instead of Rice, who has spoken to the commission behind closed doors but refused to appear in an open session, citing a White House principle that a presidential adviser not confirmed by the Senate should not testify at a public hearing.

Nonetheless, Rice appeared in several television interviews, accusing Clarke of shifting his positions and asserting that he had not raised his key concerns with her.

I thought the adults were in charge, but it turns out that the only thing they're good at is name calling.

Remember, kids - Bush Knew!

Live365: All Over The Place - Mar 23 update

Added some new stuff to the playlist after recent trips to Newbury Comics and The Record Collector. Go here and click the yellow button to play.

Here's everything:

Acid House Kings, Aden, Aluminum Group, Annie Hayden, Ataris, Barabra Manning, Basement Jaxx, Belle and Sebastian, Ben Folds, Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man, Beth Sorrentino, Billy Bragg, Blur, Bob Dylan, Bowery Electric, British Sea Power, Clem Snide, Cocteau Twins, Crowded House, Dashboard Confessional, Duran Duran, Dwight Yoakam, Echo & The Bunnymen (12 tracks from the 5 reissues), Elbow, Eleventh Dream Day, Elvis Costello, Fishbone, Folksongs For The Afterlife, Francine, Holiday Flyer, Indigo Girls, Iron & Wine, Ivy, Japan, Jay-Z & Danger Mouse, Jellyfish, John Wesley Harding, Josh Joplin Group, Junior Senior, Killing Joke, Liz Phair, Longwave, Massive Attack, Matthew Sweet, Meat Puppets, Mission Of Burma, Morrissey, My Morning Jacket, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, OK Go, Orange Peels, Pet Shop Boys, Piano Magic, R.E.M., Radiohead, Ride, Robyn Hitchcock, Rothko, Ryan Adams, Some Girls, Sting, Sugar Plant, The Blood Group, The Dead Milkmen, The Exies, The Folksmen, The Fond Farewells, The Golden Palominos, The Jayhawks, The Kinks, The Long Goodbyes, The Primitives, The Shins, The Tyde, The Undertones, The Wallflowers, The Wolfgang Press, Throwing Muses, Timmy!, Todd Rundgren, Vic Chesnutt, Wedding Present, Widelife, Wilco, Wolfie, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yes, Yo La Tengo.

The Fond Farewells blog gets underway.

Tune in for Part One of the exciting story. I'll tell you all about the long and storied history of The Fond Farewells.

Post 200! Announcing The Fond Farewells blog.

Well, I made it to 200 posts - quite a lot for me. It's probably a good a time as any to announce the creation of a blog for my band, The Fond Farewells. I'll be in Boston this weekend recording some vocals. With any luck, we just may release a CD this year. The URL for the new blog is

http://thegr8leap4ward.typepad.com/thefondfarewells/

but don't bother going over yet - I haven't done anything with it.

If you want to hear some samples of our songs, go here.

No blogging until Sunday, March 21.