There’s been a lot of talking about how inappropriate Wilson was the other night, but I haven’t heard that much talking about how inaccurate he was. Olbermann went in on him on both counts.

Your comments were inappropriate and regrettable and wrong! You got up in front of the world, embarrassed your district, embarrassed your state, embarrassed your party, embarrassed your nation, shouted at the President like he was a referee at a ballgame and you were a drunk in the stands, and you were wrong.

Got this from the Andrew Sullivan blog, after seeing it on the Ta-Nehisi Coates one:

“In an effort to honor the life and service of Strom Thurmond, Senator Lott made some comments that he probably wishes he had phrased differently. I do not believe Senator Lott meant to be malicious or racist with the comments he made. I believe he was merely honoring a great American on his 100th birthday [...] I do not believe he harbors racist sentiments in his heart,” – Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), December 13, 2002.

“There is no other way you can interpret [Sotomayor's "wise Latina" speech]. She thinks that a woman with her experience can make a better conclusion than a white male – and to me, I consider that racist,” – Inhofe, August 4, 2009.

Bonus:

I had the pleasure of seeing Roger Bonair-Agard perform this piece at Amherst College several years ago. I like to use its written form in workshops to start a discussion about word choice. Absolutely phenomenal poem:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently won a court case against a young Midwestern mother – Jammie Thomas-Rasset – who downloaded music illegally. A Minnesota federal court ruled in favor of the behemoth corporation in the amount of almost two-million dollars.

Damn. 2MIL? She must have been bootlegging that 2PAC/Biggie/Elvis joint they recorded in heaven!

Craziest thing about it though…she downloaded 24 songs. That’s not even 2 albums worth!

Give me a break RIAA. The thing is, you ufckers put yourselves in this position in the first place. When I was in high school, I knew the release dates of upcoming albums, which I would buy on cassette! I could listen to an album all the way through, from beginning of Side A to the end of Side A, and the same for Side B. Midnight Marauders. Buhloone Mindstate. The Soundtrack to the Motion Picture “Purple Rain.” Yeah I know.

Then in college, I caught up to the rest of the world and got a CD player. So the purchasing of music changed. Instead of wanting something I could definitely listen to all the way through, I was willing to settle for a CD with 5 or 6 good tracks. Getting a CD that was hot from beginning to end became more rare, but it still happened. OK Computer. Black Star. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Okay.

It’s no wonder that it was around this time that Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys and all those types of groups started to blow. There was no longer a need to make a full album of good music – and certainly no reason for the music industry to build careers. When I was 15, I would think to myself Yeah I liked his last album, so I’ll get the new one. But in college, it was about the couple songs you heard on the radio or saw on TV. But the music industry did not change their style of distribution, they still insisted that people should buy CDs – when most albums did not have an album’s worth of good music.

So after college, file sharing was the new way to get at music. And more than ever, it was about one track at a time. Still the RIAA insisted that albums were important, even though nobody bought any. Artists who had a reputation could still make albums, but I’m having a hard time remembering a single iconic album from the past 10 years that is considered a classic strictly because of its music. (Donuts doesn’t count; neither does The Black Album.)

Because of the immediacy of the way music is produced then distributed, careers are not built to last. They used to sell you a lifetime of Bruce Springsteen albums, now they sell you ONE Soulja Boy album and then try to find the next Soulja Boy.

The music industry treats its product like its disposable, but then expects us to treat it like its precious? If no artist or record label can put out a listenable product, why should I bother spending my money? What a scam RIAA!

Maybe if labels would take some time to develop actual talented artists who can create good music, then folks wouldn’t mind mind spending a little money for music. But as of now, I’m gonna keep stealing. (But seriously, please don’t sue me.)

I used to live right off U Street in DC, also known as Black Broadway – and hands down, my favorite place for late night eats was the famous Ben’s Chili Bowl. It was and still is a microcosm of real DC. Forget going to the museums and the monuments and the Senate buildings and the White House. Those are all fine for what they are, but if you wanna see the real DC, Ben’s is the quickest way to immerse yourself.

The local lore says Bill Cosby proposed to his wife there! And they got pictures of dude up in the spot, with the ill juke in the back. When I made the decision to move back to Boston – I started hitting up Ben’s for lunch and late nights because I knew I’d be missing it.

Check out the clip down there of Meet the Press with Obama and Fenty hitting up the joint. Good to see the next president actually wanted to see real DC.

Big ups to:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D), Ohio
Rep. Gwen Moore (D), Wisconsin
Rep. Ronald Paul (R), Texas
Rep. Nick Rahall (D), West Virginia
Rep. Maxine Waters (D), California

Use your Google-fu skills if you aren’t knowing.

There is an election next week. If you find yourself voting that day, then good for you. You made a choice. If not, then good for you too, you also made a choice.

I don’t have a problem with voting. I really really don’t. I will vote on Election Day – I’ve already picked my candidates for every race and my votes on the ballot questions. So you know, I don’t hate on voting.

But I do have a problem with how much our society fetishizes voting. Every four years, there are all these national ad campaigns with big celebrities telling me I’m a fool if I don’t vote. What, I’m supposed to listen to goddamn Jessica Alba? Seriously? What does she know about anything that has to do with real life?

What these commercials ignore is that elections don’t just happen every four years. There are city or state or national elections in every intervening year, so why are we ignoring those?

And larger than that, we need to use our critical lens to make choices every single day, not just in voting booths. Say for example, if you’ve made a choice to use your workday to make money for the government or multinational corporations. Are you doing the most that you could do with every day? No I’m sure not, but then again, that’s fine, do you. I don’t judge, because every person has various factors affecting the way they make decisions. Doing what you do may be the right thing for you at the time you do it.

Or if you continue to drive yourself to work, even though you know there are alternatives that would use less gas. Or you patronize businesses that exploit immigrant labor. Or you consume mainstream media, all of which is right of center. Or you continue to watch pro sports, even though you know they are exploitative. Or you whatever. I do it all too. Again, not for me to judge, and I mean that sincerely.

But don’t tell me that because you vote every four years, you’re doing your part. Don’t fool yourself. There’s so much more we could all be doing that we’re not doing. Showing up on Election Day doesn’t mean we get a pass for another four years of middling political involvement.

Those powerful folks want you to think that voting represents the utmost in political participation. Ad campaigns come around because we’re supposed to believe that voting is the maximum level of participation for any of us, when the truth is: it’s much closer to the minimum.

The point is: we need to do a lot of work out here. Getting to a voting booth next week definitely means something, but just isn’t as impressive as the people in power want us to believe it is. It’s basically one step above putting a bumper sticker on your car.

Vote: it’s the least you can do.

No literally. It’s the LEAST you can do.

There’s a lot of noise made every four years about the importance of voting. But there’s all kinds of funny business going on around elections. Visit BlackBoxVoting.com for more info. And see below for the most recent case of potential voter fraud.

From DemocracyNow.com

WV Voting Machines Switch Votes from Obama to McCain
Early voting in the presidential election has already begun in many states, and problems are already emerging at the polls. In West Virginia, voters in at least two counties using touchscreen voting machines have claimed their votes were switched from Democrat to Republican. Six voters reported having this problem in Jackson and Putnam Counties. In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. One voter, a retired nurse named Shelba Ketchum, said, “I hit Obama, and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.” Election officials blamed voters for not being more careful. Both counties use machines made by Election Systems & Software.

Going by the popular Outsider = Reform algorithm that many Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms have been parroting, here’s a list of other people who would also be great reformist maverick Vice Presidents:

Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
Rachel Ray
Osama bin Laden
LaDainian Tomlinson
Jerry O’Connell
The Numa Numa Kid
DJ Qbert
Jesse Camp
Christopher Knight
Jim McIlvaine

The homies Geologic and Sabzi – collectively known as Blue Scholars did a little writeup of their trip to Denver to participate in the protest outside the DNC.

Click here to read in its entirety.

Warning: mainstream liberals get mad in the comments section.

A couple of hilarious lines courtesy of Geo:

“I tell her that they’re not true republicans because Red is the communists’ color.”

“We’re watching this all happen with a handful of protesters of color who, unlike some other people, are trying to avoid arrest.”

Real talk once again.

Harry Allen, the Media Assassin, has a blog. And, just as you would expect, it is filled with writing that is enjoyable to read and more than its share of expert analysis. I mean, it’s Harry Allen.

So he does a very well-thought out entry reflecting on the Will.I.Am/Barack Obama connection that makes a lot of valid and interesting points, and is filled with quotable line after quotable line, but this one particularly struck a chord with me:

…the question I had after I first heard Black Eyed Peas is very similar to the one I had after hearing white people lose their minds over Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address: Where’s the funk?

Comparing a typical Obama speech to today’s, great Black speechmakers—say, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, or Juanita Bynum, to name obvious ones—is like comparing the Kool & the Gang of 1981’s Something Special (”Get Down On It”) with the Kool & the Gang of 1973’s Wild and Peaceful (”Funky Stuff,” “Jungle Boogie,” “Hollywood Swinging.”)

From “No, Seriously: I’d Much Rather Listen to Obama Girl”.

But yeah, almost the exact same thought (minus Kool and the Gang) popped into my head after Obama-mania reached its first peak after the 04 DNC. How was Obama’s speech getting all this love, when Al Sharpton was clearly the star of the show? Both in what he said and what he did: they gave him 5 minutes to speak, but he commandeered the podium for 20 minutes, letting rip with the most progressive statements about disastrous foreign policy and social inequality that anyone dared to speak during that convention. Exactly the kind of shit the brass of the Democratic Party didn’t want to have anything to do with; exactly the kind of rhetoric that could have won the election for them if they had embraced it.

I guess they were too busy trying to recapture the Joe-mentum of 2000. Yeah that worked out well…

Anyway, if the title wasn’t an obvious enough clue, I’m just trying to make the point that when it come to the election: don’t believe the hype.