Bureaucracy

I’ve had tourist visas before (no biggie).  And I had a student visa in college to spend a semester in Japan (also a breeze, but with an AIDS test required).  The whole work visa thing is new to me, however, and the amount of paperwork involved is a little intimidating.

Not that any of the requirements are particularly unfair or demanding; it’s just something that requires a lot of attention to detail.  In triplicate, usually.

Unheimlich II

It’s not my favorite track on the whole album, but I’m really fond of “Deep Water” on Portishead’s new effort Third (coming only 11 years after their last studio LP). The track manages to sum up the strengths of the album as a whole: It’s stripped down (samples are there, but fewer in number), which makes it, paradoxically, both warmer and more menacing than their previous two albums.  A short track, coming a little over the half-way mark, it’s simply Beth Gibbons singing accompanied by a ukulele.  At the chorus, a few heavily modified men’s voices come in, almost like a Speak and Spell machine taken over by Satan, and the result is a little terrifying.  In a good way.

Charm City Rockers

I’d heard good things about Shudder to Think reuniting to play some dates together over the past year, but now it looks as if they’re scheduled to play a great big outdoor festival in my former home of Baltimore. I approve.

For the youngsters out there, you probably don’t remember these guys but they were great — angular, a little creepy, and incredibly solid. They were a part of the 80’s-90’s DC thing, in a good way, but at the same time they were doing very much their own thing.

Here’s the closest thing they ever had to a hit: “X-French Tee Shirt” (YT). It kind of blows my mind that I actually saw this video a few times on MTV back in the day. I mean, when was the last time they actually played videos? And by a band as innovative as STT?

Sympathy for the Devil(s)

It takes a lot for me to be sympathetic toward lawyers in general (although I know a few who are stand-up people), but the latest Bush Regime scandal manages to do so. In a “blistering report,” the DOJ’s inspector general made it clear that for the past six years hires have been made on purely political (and often speculative) grounds rather than on merit.

I realize there isn’t much outrage left to go around, and this is far from the worst abuse of power we’ve had inflicted upon us by this presidency, but the trademark patterns are all there: heavy-handed implementation of a political “purity test,” a belief that nobody would ever be caught since Republicans were going to stay in power forever and ever, and a general disregard for basic notions of fairness and merit. Lest we forget, it’s not like these were hires at your local DMV. These are the brainy go-getters that play a crucial role in keeping our country safe and, failing that, punishing those who attack it.

Granted, the spoils system is nothing new, and presidents have a right to appoint the people they want to top positions. But the notion of a Justice Department that had a wholesale ban on anyone who might be of the Democratic persuasion?

January 2009 can’t come soon enough.

Unheimlich

I drove home this afternoon past one of the county Indian Reservations and saw a bunch of signs up for “Fireworks,” a sure sign that July 4th is approaching.

Where, oh where did the first half of 2008 go?  Things haven’t been particularly great or horrid (although I am excited to be moving abroad at the end of the summer), but now I’m worried that time is somehow accelerating on me like a freaky J. G. Ballard short story.  Or a really horrible M. Night Shyamalan flick (redundant of me to call something he makes these days “horrible,” I realize, (via)).

Radio

To celebrate Father’s Day, NPR’s Scott Simon had a really moving piece last weekend based on his receiving a 1962 recording of his father’s own radio show.  Kind of hard to explain, but worth a few minutes if you have the time.

Cry Havoc

I’ve happily taken something of a sabbatical from presidential politics after Obama’s stirring primary victory, figuring that for the next few weeks at least the two campaigns would just be sizing each other up.  But I do find it funny that one of the first meme battles had to do with drawing analogies to previous politicians.  McCain got all excited calling Obama a new “Carter,”and Arianna has been somewhat successful in labeling McCain the second coming of Bob Dole.

I’m biased, obviously, but I think the early money has to go on Obama.  Say what you will about Jimmy Carter, he did happen to win in 1976.  Bob Dole went straight to being a spokesman for erectile dysfunction.  Draw your own conclusions.

Double-Plus No Good

As usual I woke up this morning to the sounds of Canadian news radio, and I thought I’d dreamed what the announcer was saying – something about human feet washing up on the shores of islands near Vancouver.  Well, I wasn’t dreaming:  Five feet, from five different people, all encased in “running shoes.”

The most recent one was the first lefty, apparently.  And the sixth one?  A “reprehensible” hoax.  Crazy kids with their fake-dismembered feet.

Future Shock

It looks as if I’ll be moving abroad soon, pending smooth sailing on my work visa. I’m excited to live somewhere I’ve never been before (details to follow), but I’m curbing my enthusiasm by focusing on more mundane issues — I need to do some shopping.

So I can live without the jet-pack and sex robot I was promised decades ago by Science and American Innovation, but why is it so hard to find and purchase a pair of the greatest shoes evar (Blundstones, natch)?

It looks like I can buy a pair on-line, but shoes are just one of those things you want to try out IRL, no? My footsies deserve the best.

Friends Like These

Clinton flack Lanny Davis joins FOX news.

I appreciated the fact that HRC ended her campaign with grace and style, and I have no doubt that she’ll be an effective campaigner for Obama.  If only I could say the same thing about some of her supporters.

Then again, in a twisted way, it makes perfect sense.  Obama’s victory was about more than just himself as a candidate — it was about a team of relative outsiders that pulled off the biggest upset in modern American political history.  For long-term insiders like Davis, Begala, Carville, and Penn, the notion that they won’t be asked for their “wisdom” leading up to November (or paid for it, obviously) must come as a complete shock.  So at least a paycheck from FOX, while odious, isn’t pulling resources away from Obama’s national campaign.