1. Radiohead!  I don't know how they do it, but these boys with their doom and gloom and ondes martenots and carbon footprint analyses and silly hair make my heart hurt, and I love it.  I've got pit tickets to the St. Louis show, and I'm going to All Points West to see them, two nights in a row.  Oh, the setlist possibilities.  I vote Cuttooth.  Or Amazing Sounds of Orgy.  Like Spinning Plates.  I Want None Of This.  (I want all of this.)
   
2. John Simm!  My painstakingly calibrated scientific study has concluded that John Simm is utterly delightful in every way.  If you have not seen the BBC miniseries State of Play, you've no business fucking about on the internet.  Watch it!
3. Prime Minister's Questions!  Why doesn't our government work like this?  The Republicans would be a lot more amusing if they were represented by such a dashing lavender-tied figure as David Cameron, he of the lean-and-smirk-of-emphasis. PMQ was by far the most entertaining program on the television during the writers' strike, but I'll keep watching as long as C-SPAN sees fit to broadcast.

Yes, we can!

For the first time in my life, I find myself truly supporting a candidate who has a chance in hell of winning. I'm not supporting the lesser of two (or three, or five) evils. I'm not supporting the opposition just because they're the opposition. I don't feel a desire to support an outsider in order to send a message to a broken system.

I believe that Barack Obama has the potential to really, truly unite this country. Not in the sense that everybody will suddenly magically believe all the same things. But right now we can't even engage in a discussion of our future with those in power in good faith. So many of our divisions that are so easily and cynically exploited for political and monetary gain can be overcome, with a candidate who combines a robustly progressive platform, an intention to serve all of us, not just those who agree with the most narrow interpretation of that platform, and the ability to include and inspire nontraditional supporters.

I don't want to pile on Hillary Clinton here. I'm not a hater; I think she'll do a decent job if she wins the presidency. In fact, her positions on many issues are nearly indistinguishable from Obama's, except in the smallest details. But her name is nearly synonymous with divisiveness. She will surely benefit from the change in tone and practice that Obama promises to bring about. But she is knee-deep in the status quo shit and cannot pull us out.

Obama possesses particular strengths, that are essential if we are to truly heal after the unmitigated disaster of a presidency we've been subjected to these last 8 years. He's young. His political identity was not forged not in the fires of Vietnam but in the poverty-stricken streets and courtrooms of south Chicago. He's not white. He has a multi-cultural, multinational background. He's lived outside the United States. His name is Barack Hussein Obama. His mere presence in the White House will be a shining beacon, a message to the rest of the planet: "We get it now."



From his victory speech in South Carolina tonight:

"It’s about the past versus the future. It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity...

...that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:

Yes. We. Can."

And here is his extraordinary Martin Luther King, Jr. Day speech:

Peter Jackson's gonna make The Hobbit!

Peter Jackson's gonna make The Hobbit!

Peter Jackson's gonna make The Hobbit!

I can no longer remember what my arrestee number was.  It was 8 years ago: December 1, 1999, and I was arrested in Westlake Park in downtown Seattle while protesting the WTO, which was meeting in the city at the time.  I think I was charged with obstruction and disorderly conduct, and something else.  I remained in jail for 5 days after refusing to give my name, and eventually the charges were dropped for me and everybody else who had been arrested protesting peacefully.  However, the charges were dismissed without prejudice, which essentially meant that the city had the option of reinstating the charges whenever they so chose.

But it no longer matters, since I discovered today that there was a successful class action lawsuit that declared our arrests unconstitutional, as they violated our 4th amendment rights.  The lawsuit resulted in the records of all of us arrested in that park on that day being expunged.  I like that word, expunged.  Apparently the city also had to pay out $1 million to those of us in the class, but I think I missed the window to make a claim.  The important thing, though, is that I am vindicated!  I was right! 

City of Seattle, you owe me an apology!  (Since I'm not getting my part of the $1M.)

( Is love. )