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Sarah Palin is conservative eye candy.
Why did McCain pick her? Because she will be the ultimate Miss Moneypenny to his James Bond. She’s clever, hot, and most definitely subordinate to The Man. She is the ideal conservative VP: a totally bangable chick whose only job is to be a foil to highlight the masculinity of the Great Leader.
The New York Times is running a story today about the difficulty of getting alternative energy (in this case wind energy) to market. Mr. Wald locates the problem here:
The power grid is balkanized, with about 200,000 miles of power lines divided among 500 owners. Big transmission upgrades often involve multiple companies, many state governments and numerous permits. Every addition to the grid provokes fights with property owners.
This sounds a lot like the classic modernist narrative Le Corbusier gives in The City of Tomorrow:
Man walks in a straight line because he has a goal and knows where he is going; he has made up his mind to reach some particular place and he goes straight to it. The pack-donkey meanders along, meditates a little in his scatter-brained and distracted fashion, he zigzags in order to avoid the larger stones, or to ease the climb, or to gain a little shade; he takes the line of least resistance.
It is also the capitalist, freemarketeer’s main argument against preservation — and, by the way, environmentalism. Speed and economies of scale are assumed by the capitalist to be fundamental to survival. In high school debate this is the “Growth Is Good” argument.
“I am a daredevil, in the great tradition of the greatest daredevil of all time, Evil Knevel. I’m a rebel, Dottie, a loner.”
Check it out! Check it out! Check it out! Big up mah main lady of the unemployment line — Eve’l Knevel and her rad new blog on living in NYC sans travail.
So far being free isn’t just another word for nothing left to lose:
“Hello all you burdens to society! It’s another gorgeous day of being unemployed in the city. Yesterday I covered the super-fun mandatory trip to the Dept. of Labor. Today I’d like to help you take on the overwhelming inertia that inevitably consumes the long-term unemployed. It is a matter of fact that, when given all the time in the world to pursue hobbies, better ourselves, and use this paid, totally free free time, most of us will slip into the giant vortex of inactivity that only boatloads of unstructured time can bring. At first, after the shock and anger of losing your job wears off, unemployment is fun. It’s a blast! Holy crap, I have all the time to do WHATEVER I FREAKIN’ WANT!”
We can’t wait to see how she’s doing at Christmas!
Even better, she’s literatti from the old school. Get a taste of her tastes:
“I got all teary-eyed getting to see John Doe and Exene Cervanka, idols from my youth from the band X, playing on stage. I was just a tiny little pre-punk rocker when I first heard their plaintive, discordant tones. I went batshit for their band, X. They didn’t sound like anything else I had ever heard. Punk, but folks-y. I later heard the term cowpunk, and that seemed about right. And I’d always followed John Doe’s acting career (He was Pat McGurn, sleazy bartender, in Roadhouse, for chrissakes. Roadhouse! Another classic. I told you my definition of “the classics” may not match your own).”
We here at CC hope you read her stuff and enjoy!
This is a drawing from a NY Times piece on the artistic genius of architects. I know many of you — my friends — are architects. But I have to say, when it comes to raw hubris, not even Richard Cheney can beat an architect (or their groupies).
Ayn Rand
As CC’s intrepid reporter J. D. Oxblood just pointed out, New York City cops ain’t too bright. But it turns out (and this is no surprise) that the problem doesn’t stop at the street.
The New York Times is reporting that the city decided to settle a law suit from 2003 for two million dollars. The suit claimed wrongful arrest: the cops swept the street to crush any sign of political dissent, made mass arrests that imprisoned innocent passersby, and in the end, after deciding to settle out of court rather than face a trial, the cops refused to apologize. (Sounds a little like how they recruited inmates for Gitmo.)
It would be easy (and correct) to blame this gross infringement of our rights and liberties on Guiliani, the Republicans (Mayor Mike, that means you too), and the nasty political culture of hate and fear that has been allowed to flower since Reagan announced it was morning in America. Ann Coulter should serve the same amount of time in jail for undermining respect for political dissent in this country that those 52 innocents had to spend for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Even a couple of days times 52 is a lot). As Ahmad Shirazi, 70, one of those arrested said:
… as he was being handcuffed for the first time in his life, he told the officer that the plastic cuffs were squeezing him. “He said, ‘You should have thought about that before you came out this morning.’ It was like a dagger in my heart, that a police officer of my city would come up with anything like that.”
But in New York City at least we have another Lady who we can look to as justification of our petition to have cops and politicians punished who try to strong arm us into giving up our freedom.
The first great thing I have to say about the New York roller derby scene is this: the Gotham Girls want everyone to come to the party. The pre-party at a bar near the venue was touted on their website — an open invitation — and while I was still patting myself on the back for my uber-super-reporting skills at getting an invite to the after party, I saw the open invitation in the program. You gotta love a bunch of tough girls who want everyone to come and get drunk with them. But here’s the bad news: there’s a reason why you need a “pre” and a “post.” There are no alcoholic beverages served in the basement of Hunter College, and between the metal detectors (read: metal flasks) and the hand searches (read: sniffing water bottles) it’s nigh on impossible to smuggle in booze. And that, my pretties, is the only bad thing I can say about Saturday night’s bout between the Bronx Gridlock and the Queens of Pain.
Are we happy the days of dingy subway stations are gone? (Don’t look at Jay St. — you might think it was the 70s again.) Even if the stations aren’t covered in spray paint, some old-fashioned smart-asses are taking the burden of de-corpratizing the subway on their shoulders to make our commute a little more fun.
By J.D. Oxblood
Success! We totally hit it! Over 2500 people hit the blog in one day last week, all because I decided to talk trash about somebody famous. When my editor said, “We got linked by Gawker,” I put my hand to my mouth like a Japanese schoolgirl. “Is that, like, the internet’s way of getting fined by the FCC?” I thought, finally, I’m busted. It was almost a relief. But it turns out, unbeknownst to me, that Gawker is some, like, really famous website? Where, like, EVERYone who’s ANYone goes to get their dirt on the celebs? And, like, you SO totally have to check it out, like, every day? And there was little ol’ JD getting linked by the big boys, and all the ga-ga girls and pretty boys hyper-linked over to cultural capitol where JD told them to… get a life. Ah, the circle of cynicism is complete.
This guy was in his clown suit on the L train between 1st Ave. and Bedford. He looked sad. Sad clown. After a hard day of clowning I imagined he was on his way home to his clown wife and clown kids. Probably in Queens.
This is a week late. So what. Sue me.
Some dudes set up a goal outside the courts as West 4th street a week ago, and some random white guy was dunking his heart out, missing most of the time, and incurring the scorn of the Black males watching. (I think the goal fit in the back of the Penske truck in the photo.)
A skeptical audience
Front page news folks!
If you didn’t see it in the comments, our girl Jocelyn over at Rock Star Diary, alerted us to an article in the Greenpoint Gazette that gives more scoop on the Richard Duran killing on July 11.
BUT HERE’S THE NEWS: Why wasn’t the crime scene cleaned up? Because it happened on MTA property. This makes me laugh… the kind of sick, disgusted, sardonic laugh one is likely to cough up at the end of a French noir or an O. Henry story. Or after watching Fox News. No rest for the wicked. No good deed goes unpunished.
culturalcapitol.com 