The point is not that I’m typical, it’s that no one is typical, especially journalists covering political conventions, and so their filters are skewed to the point of, at best, refracting truth, rather than reflecting it. To cite one example: One of the two or three biggest themes and subtexts of this four-day gathering was race, civil rights, and minority concerns. Did you see much written about this, from me or anyone else? I’d guess not, due to the fact that most of the reporters are white, and concerned with other issues. - Matt Welch (Reason)

From the latest Lex Records email:

That's [Lex's catalog consisting primarily of Hip Hop] no bad thing but the next six months look set to see that balance shift... This autumn there's the first album from Subtle - a six piece band that includes Dose One and Jel from Themselves signed to Lex for a handful of albums... Then there's new albums from Fog and Boom Bip which are just about to be delivered. Boom Bip has been working with a clutch of indie rockers including The Super Furry Animals and Fog's demos sound more like Neutral Milk Hotel than the Beat Junkies...

That's good news. Lex's hip hop offerings are split about 50/50 love/hate for me... But I can always get behind the intent. It's good to see them branching out.

The four self released Subtle EPs (Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter) are amazing. I think I remember hearing that NinjaTune was going to put out the existing stuff. I hope that's still on and Lex will be releasing new Subtle tracks.

In other corners, Astropitch is taking pre-orders for an exclusive limited run Jel: Greenball 2 CD, which includes:

Interview #1, Zen Approach RMX, i Really Don't Know Much, Interview #2, Smake and Mirrors, Interview #3, Matkimble is Crazy, Jibberish and Drugaddict, Verticle Butt Stroke, juars Sun, Bootcamp Cramps, _Ucck A hihat, Interview #4, DIY Partisan, neglected Beat 1, Sole and Sage Heads hurt, Interlude (Sky Terrorism), neglected Beat 2, Wash Mommy's Wittle Soldures NRI Brain, God Thinks Funny Haha.

...And the official Anticon site lists "a themselves & the Notwist collaboration LP" under their "In the Works" section. No other info is given.

10:35-37: two minutes of standing applause. Clinton then proceeds to give the only masterful political speech I have heard since ... since he retired from politics. His timing is perfect - there's enough policy meatiness to save the speech from vacuousness, but it's folksy, funny. It is a brilliant speech, and it seems just possible that Clinton could, in a perfectly-executed speech, win one more election, this time for someone else. - Patrick Belton - OxBlog

After a little fandangaling, I was able to recipe decent broadcast TV at home (tip: an old Playstation RF cable makes a surprisingly good antenna). ....Just in time for Hillary's introduction of Bill. Patrick isn't overstating. It was a fine speech - Stressing responsibility and balance. Of course there wasn't much talk of how that's actually going to happen. That's John Kerry's job on Thursday night. I remain unconvinced he can do it....

• Watch Clinton's speech at C-Span (RealAudio format)
• Read the rest of Patrick's excellent first day convention coverage

• My Beef With Big Media - Ted Turn makes a detailed case for breaking up media conglomerates.
• Rainbow's Gravity - Looking back at the effect of Jesse Jackson on the Democratic party.
• Tony Pierce offers real responces to Bush's questions for the Urban Leauge.

Report from Boston: Stay Out of the "Free Speech Zone"

As we were casually walking through the pen, our jaws open in dis-belief, a group of officers quickly surrounded us. Twenty-four of them. The first officer (Officer ‘Gately’) approached us swiftly, and declared, “Do you know that the willful destruction of public property in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a felony that carries 5 year in jail!” We were taken aback by this introduction.

• Photographs from Yahoo
• Photographs from IndyMedia
• "Free Speech Zone" News at Google

Amazingly, the irony has been lost on it's creators...

The summer of current times political documentaries continued last night with "The Hunting of the President". Like many of this new ilk, it isn't going to win an Oscar. It's not a documentary with the polish of say Errol Morris' "Fast Cheap and Out of Control". Also like it's contemporaries, it should be viewed with the same critical and objective eye as media coming from a more conservative perspective - There are some questionable cuts and muddy explanations sprinkled throughout. Although that shouldn't be used as a blanket excuse to negate the movie as a whole.

There's some very eye opening things in there. There wasn't much I found to be very new... but somehow seeing it now, with some passed time, and all neatly time-lined together makes it all the more upsetting.

If you want to know how you stage a coup d'etat that is neither sudden or forceful, against a standing government backed by the strongest military ever known, look at the activities of Ken Starr and the Independent Council during their investigation of Clinton.

It bothers me to say things like coup d'etat. It's a term of conspiracy. Conspiracy is the realm of movies and crazy people. The thing is, I really don't know how else to describe it.

That's a very saddening thought.

Things have gone wrong in this country... Well beyond the current deplorable actions of the president, his administration, and the various high powered individuals associated with it.

Somewhere along the line, our politicians have become afraid. Our members of congress, elected to represent and serve us, don't. It is their job to act as a check against any action that seeks to subvert the will of the people. Instead they feared for their jobs. They either sat quietly or fell behind the party line.

That in and of it's self is disheartening.

It gets worse when you look at how that trend has advanced. Where were those elected representatives when the Congressional Black Caucus needed a senator... any single senator... to challenge the election results in Florida? What about standing up against what has been proven to be an utterly unfounded rush to war? How about the passing of the Patriot Act? Where were these so called representatives?

They were sitting in the corner, afraid to ruffle any feathers within the strong armed status quo. In the face of intimidation, they compromised beliefs I know they hold to be true.

Which leaves us with an entire top level government which does not contain a single solitary person whose first and only priority is to look after the people they falsely claim to represent. Without such a thing, the system of checks and balances falls completely apart.

John Kerry is not an answer. Placed next to Bush, his promise of in-effectual mediocrity looks absolutely radiant. But he's a stall for time. A harmless place holder that can sit still while everyone regroups and formulates a proper plan.

I don't claim to know what that answer is. All I really know is we have reached a point in time where a strong belief in your own beliefs is all the justification needed to pervert and abuse the very system you claim to honor and protect.

We're collapsing in on our selves - before our very eyes.

Outfoxed is an important movie. It does a great job documenting the highly conservative non-news programing on Fox News. It also shows the level of double talk they employ to spin their programing as legitimate unbiassed news.

Unfortunately, the big question of "Why is this bad?" gets lost amidst all the documenting. I can understand the filmmakers need to be thorough. The folks at Fox have become experts at finding some minor trivial point and blowing it out into an issue (evidenced by their stunning campaign to label John Kerry "French"). When going after them you need to make sure there's as little room as possible.

If you want to change peoples minds, you also need a Why. There are two big ones in this case. 1) Fox is using the guise of news to manipulate people on very important matters - This is evident in hard data regarding Fox viewers having a distorted view of facts about current events and 2) Legitimate news organizations feeling like they need to compete with Fox - The problems this can cause are evident in Fox calling the Florida results for George Bush (later they admitted it was done in error) and everyone else immediately (counted in seconds) following suit, in an attempt to keep viewers from switching over.

The movie hits both of these points. But they come interspersed with the flood of Fox on air talent saying Really Bad Things. More clarity and explanation is needed. They should have been saved for the very end and expanded upon. Instead we were treated to an extended and vague call to protest. My little group of viewers wasn't very inspired by it. I'd bet it did even less for anyone watching who was on the fence.

This is not a hip hop record, not an electronic record and definitely not a jazz record, but we're influenced by all of these and love to create our own interpretations of these genres..

MoveOn is organizing house parties to watch the new Outfoxed documentary.

I'd love to take advantage of our new big living room and show it.

But you can't show the movie without the movie.

Buying the movie from MoveOn requires that your billing address matches your shipping address. That's silly. It can't be delivered to my house. It has to come to my job. Knowing the billing address should be more than enough security for a site selling $9.95 political documentaries.

You can also get it direct from Outfoxed. They don't require a strict billing/shipping match. The order part is handled by Fulfillment Concepts. I don't think these people have ever seen a web shopping cart before. The site is horribly unusable. I've been buying things online for nearly 10 years... It took me a while (and a few mistakes) to figure it out. Once I did, the order submission didn't work. Twice I received SQL errors. On the third time it went through. Hopefully that doesn't mean I'll be receiving 3 copies.

If folks really want to see all this internet changing politics hype play out, they really need to start focusing more on the user experience end of things. Your "Everyday American" isn't going to put up with these types of hassles.

Update: I sent MoveOn a support request about buying the movie. Today they sent me the FAQ... it doesn't mention my problem. My CC has yet to be billed by Fulfillment Concepts... the odds are slim for that working out. It looks like no movie party for me.

You may have noticed that little link blog over there in the right hand column hasn't been updated in a while.

I've been slowly but surely moving it from del.icio.us to blogger. Slowly being the key word. I still need to add in most of the old links and get it displayed in the sidebar. Until then, you can read the new version directly at suttersatchel.blogspot.com or get the site feed here.

On Steve's recommendation, we went with One Big Man, One Big Truck for movers. They rock. Friendly and ass hauling fast. One of the guys carried both our g5's on his back - At the same time. As a result, the whole deal took just under 3 hours.

If your moving in San Francisco, I can't recommend them more.

While filming his documentary, Gunner Palace, Michael Tucker ran into some soldiers who were better at expressing themselves through freestyling than in a traditional on camera interview. The Gunner Palace site includes a 7mb video of Taylor Made freestyling on the possibility of dyeing and his family back home.

If you just want the audio (and smaller download), I've ripped it to MP3 (545kb): gunner-palace-freestyle.mp3

One good thing about packing is that you have no choice but to find things.

For example, I found three disposable cameras with all the film spent. Carbon dating revealed that they were from sometime around the mid nineteen nineties... when I was still in St. Louis.

Lane took them to work for developing. Surprisingly they turned out great (considering age and the fact that they've been across this fine country one and a half times).

The past is further away than it seems.

Showing them to Goldman included a mixture of confusion, denial, hysterics, and hope for the future. To quote: "Now I feel like I've done something with the last 7 years."

As soon as I have access to a scanner again, I'll post the highlights.

Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue

It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking.

Here's a little 9 minute ditty about city life:
Thisaboutthecitytoo /Themselves (Doseone & Jel) /Live EP (buy it)

Every apartment has some drawbacks. That goes with the territory. Our new one was an unfortunate victim of the 80's. White carpet, white mini blinds, and every wall painted pink. A much hipper boy may have brushed back his newly feathered hair and moved right in. That's not me. I don't want to live anywhere that looks like the apartment for a high class call girl on Miami Vice.

So we painted.

And painted.

And painted.

It took Friday night, all of Saturday, all of Sunday, and a good part of Monday.

I've never spent that much time on a ladder. Ladders are hard work. You constantly have to shift and lean and bend to reach that last little spot, without falling to a paint covered doom.

I'm sore.

On Sunday night, I had three seperate dreams about throwing up. Then I had a dream about Ghandi. He was little and old and indian... He was wearing blue jeans.

Paint fumes are also a problem.

It was well worth the effort though. It's all happy and warm, instead of cold and bland.

Now we have to pack all our everythings by Saturday.

Things could get ugly.

...And other fine shirts in the Designs on the White House store.

Collected from the left, right and inbetween: In Slate.