Thank you John in the Morning! I can't stop lovin' my KEXP. Today I heard this song by the Long Winters, and it's on this new compilation, which I just ordered. I think I may get the whole LW album from Itunes, it sounds pretty good too. Here's the skinny on the compilation though. Now you can listen to great music and feel politically engaged at the same time!

Love,
the Inactivist

"Barsuk's next release will be a fundraising CD compilation, titled future soundtrack for america, a joint project with MoveOn.org and Music For America. (McSweeney's Publishing is also releasing a book with similar fundraising goals that will include a copy of the CD; the future dictionary of america features contributions from an astounding group of almost 200 writers, from Paul Auster to Michael Chabon to Jonathan Franzen to Joyce Carol Oates to Kurt Vonnegut to Wendy Wasserstein.)

One hundred percent of our and McSweeney's profits will go to non-profit progressive organizations, including Music For America, Common Assets, The Sierra Club, and others.

The CD will be available August 17th in most stores and here in the Barsuk shop; something tells us that you just might be able to get it a few days earlier if you're on the MoveOn e-mail list...

Complete artist and tracklisting:

OK Go : This Will Be Our Year
David Byrne : Ain't Got So Far To Go
Jimmy Eat World : Game of Pricks (BBC evening session)
Death Cab For Cutie : This Temporary Life
Blink-182 : I Miss You (James Guthrie mix)
Mike Doughty : Move On
Ben Kweller : Jerry Falwell Destroyed Earth
Sleater-Kinney : Off With Your Head
R.E.M. : Final Straw (MoveOn mix)
Bright Eyes : Going for the Gold (live)
The Long Winters : The Commander Thinks Aloud (future mix)
will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas : Money
They Might Be Giants : Tippecanoe And Tyler Too
Clem Snide : The Ballad of David Icke
Yeah Yeah Yeahs : Date With the Night (live)
Fountains of Wayne : Everything's Ruined (acoustic)
Nada Surf : Your Legs Grow
The Flaming Lips : Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (live on the BBC)
Old 97's : Northern Line
Laura Cantrell : Sam Stone
Tom Waits : Day After Tomorrow
Elliott Smith : A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free"

It's only $12! Buy it!

Last night I read the entire first volume of Grant Morrison's the (now old) New X-Men that (e:matthew) gave me like a year ago. It was very escapist and helped me get out of my head awhile. But here's what scared me... I think I'm turning into Cassandra Nova...

So yesterday I was pretty miserably, even morbidly depressed. I slept a lot, and dreamt a lot. I thought of a lot of depressive things to write about: my total lack of ambition, my intensifying agoraphobia, my tick tick ticking biological clock (one dream I had involved losing a baby for several days in a labrynthine network of cupboards). But instead of talking about depressing depression, I will tell you a bit about one of the strange dreams I had, that involved some e-peepers. It's brief, since I kept hitting the snooze alarm on my news-tuned clock radio, which meant that the dream ended up as a Bush/Kerry debate, which was also pretty weird.

But here is how it started. I was backpacking by myself through a huge jungle nature preserve. Everything was oversized, giant leaves, spanish moss on everything (thanks south carolina for adding that coolness to my visual reservoir!) There were animals hiding here and there in the woods, including the collage-gorilla (e:matthew) made [inlink]matthew,300[/inlink]. It moved around and was gorilla-sized but was made out of tiny pieces of cut paper. This gorilla was with his family and he watched me calmly if cautiously as a trudged by with my grungy pack.

It seemed like I had been traveling a long time, everything I had on was pretty dirty, and I felt pretty seasoned. I crossed a huge ravine by walking over a fallen log and on the other side I met (e:terry) and weirdly, (e:jeremy) (jungle?). They were happy hippies who came to tour the park too. They asked me if I had touched the gorillas, as if it was the thing you absolutely had to do while you were there, and of course I hadn't. They were like, ohhh, you missed out.

So I went to sleep on a high hill and I didn't pitch a tent, I just put down a green tarp and a sleeping bag and slept out in the air. It rained on me, but as I said I was pretty used to traveling so I was only mildly annoyed. It was like I was an itinerant monk trying to mortify myself.

In the morning I woke up and sat up in the lotus position immediately and started chanting a mantra, Nam myoho renge kyo. Which is weird since I haven't chanted in years, and I never chanted this mantra, and I haven't thought about or practiced Buddhism in ages. As I was chanting, a crowd of Buddhist nuns sat down beside me, and started chanting with me. They had shaved heads and beautifully embroidered white robes. One of them on my left looked directly, intently at me, and then I don't remember any more.

Here's a little something about the mantra:
When deluded, one is called an ordinary being, but when enlightened, one is called a Buddha. This is similar to a tarnished mirror that will shine like a jewel when polished. A mind now clouded by the illusions of the innate darkness of life is like a tarnished mirror, but when polished, it is sure to become like a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of phenomena and the true aspect of reality. Arouse deep faith, and diligently polish your mirror day and night. How should you polish it? Only by chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
On Attaining Buddhahood in This Lifetime- Nichiren

This has prolly already been posted, but here is a really funny flash short bashing both candidates to the tune of woody guthries's "this land is your land", at jibjab.com . even CNN and Newsweek love it, so get with the center people! moderation or death!

Sometimes it seems that moderation in itself can be a kind of extreme.
--Andrew Bird, Weather Systems

"The beast will walk upon the earth and darkness will follow. The several races of man will be as one in their terror and destruction." Aw, that's kind of sweet. Different races coming together.
--Mayor Wilkins, reading aloud from the Books of Ascension, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, Episode 55.

In other news, I want a pony!

Hey Y'all! Follow this to see all the pictures from my trip down south. Matt there are aquarium pictures just for you!

hello! i'm back from the south! here is a picture that pretty much sums it up:



stay tuned for more pictures soon...

This is the cover for a mix that I made for my niece, whose birthday was about a week ago. She just turned 17. My whole family, mom, two sisters, two teenagers, and assorted pets (three dogs! ferrrets!) are leaving tomorrow on a Beverly-Hillbillies trip to the shallow south to look at colleges for her. We're going as far as Charleston, which I'm really excited to see. I'll try to check in if I can and let y'all know how it's goin'. Here is the mix list of feel-good teeny bopper songs I will also be listening to on our trip:

1. ragtime interlude/ i’m really hot- missy elliot
2. take me out- franz ferdinand
3. kissability- sonic youth
4. an open letter to NYC- beastie boys
5. bullet and a target- citizen cope
6. buffalos- homelife
7. rich- yeah yeah yeahs
8. good fortune- pj harvey
9. extraordinary- liz phair
10. turn a square- shins
11. gabe’s new joint- antibalas
12. birthday- the sugarcubes
13. the dress looks nice on you- sufjan stevens
14. griot village- mali music

Am I the only one who thinks the Bush girls are soooo white trash? I mean this is just tacky. Clearly they need like Mary Poppins or how 'bout a few months in Guantanamo to cure them of their spoiled rich girl antics! Can't you just see in her face what an insolent little snit she is? The spawn doesn't gestate very far from the pod, apparently.

Sooo cute! what's weird is that he isn't even albino, he's genuinely white. But is it a sign of the end of the world? "And lo, the white bear of Tidioute did appear in the final ages of man..." Tidioute by the way is a very rustic part of Pennsyltucky near the teeming metropoli of Warren and Pleasantville. Fun fact: “Tidioute� (pronounced tiddy-oot) is an Iroquois (Seneca) Indian word meaning 'protrusion of land'. Enjoy your Apocalypse!

Okay, so follow me on this metaphor. The United States of America, our noble motherland, has borne 50 screaming offspring in the form of our federated states (each one bears some resemblance to its mommy, but each has its own unique attitude too. Some state brothers resemble each other about as much as Cain and Abel, doncha think?)

So now my question is, is it too late to abort Texas? I mean, it's not nearly in the third-trimester of American history like Massachusettes say, or even New York. Texas was only conceived as a state in 1845. And that whole independent republic thing... doesn't that make them a bit of a test tube baby, trying to gestate outside their mother's tummy? I say, git rid of 'em. Like any sensible teenage would-be mom who wakes up three weeks later to realize she's bearing a baby the world doesn't want, we should make an appointment at Planned Nationhood, and vaccuum that offending fetus right out of us.

So what's the point of this belabored (heh heh) metaphor. Oh, only that today I heard a report on the radio that Texas, a state that spends millions on abstinence "education" and regularly purges information about contraception from school books has, you guessed it, the nation's highest rate of teeanage pregnancies, and thus, the highest rate of abortions. Put that in your Bible totin', Job quotin', God smotin' pipe and fucking smoke it. Oh, and in doing a little research about Texas, I also found out that, for the same blaringly obvious reasons, they also have the fourth highest rate of new HIV cases. So much for preserving the sanctity of human life.

Any fool who can read a UNICEF report knows that contraception information and honest sex education indeed lower the rates of teenage pregnancies and STD transmission. For instance: Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, those cesspools of human depravity, where they readily inform kids about the consequences of sex, have about between 5 and 10 births per thousand teenagers. And in the US, where we tell them to trust in Jesus and just don't do "it", well, we're at about 53 births per thousand. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1213875,00.html) Study after study proves this, while the BU(ll)SH(it) administration keeps putting funding pressure on US government offices, non-profits and even international NGO's to stress abstinence over the logic and scientifically sound research behind contraceptive programs.

So why do conservatives, who abhor abortion so much they're willing to use terrorist tactics to prevent it, not get the connection? I mean, let's clear up a stereotype here, they're not all ignorant inbred rednecks! In fact some of them are very intelligent, if maleficent, manipulators who dupe and deny the low-income masses that make up most of their constituency (and most of the victims of teenage pregnancy as well).

So here's my conspiracy theory. The conservative don't give two shits about the sanctity of human life, the welfare of young mothers, or even their own souls for that matter. The whole thing is a red herring to motivate and mobilize the masses, whip them into a frenzy, as it were. I mean, what sounds nobler than the innocent untouched soul of a parasitic lump of proteiny goo?

The contradictions are there for anyone to see. Firstly, abstinence education leads to more abortions. That's right, Texas, my little lad, abstinence causes abortion. Ironic, isn't it? Also, I've never understood how you can be pro-life and pro-death penalty at the same time. Bring the kids into a life where their mother is poor, underage, and under educated, and then turn murderously sanctimonious when, gasp! he becomes a criminal. The right to life doesn't mean much in Texas then, even if you're mentally retarded or wrongly convicted.

There are about 850,000 abortions performed in the entire country per year, and the number has actually been falling o
ve
r the past thirty years of "sexual immorality" and Planned Parenthood that conservatives are so ready to decry. At the same time, over 6 million people are killed each year in car wrecks. Surely not all of them are evil people? Surely they have a right to life? But you don't see conservatives chaining themselves to the front steps of Ford Motors, or expunging drivers ed from the curriculum, or lobbying for more commuter trains. No. Why? Because its not about life stupid, its about the moral frenzy. What about the santicity of other surely innocent lives that are lost to depraved circumstances? Like the 2,500 left-handed people who die each year from using right-handed products, or the 100 people who choke on ball point pen caps? Dear God won't someone give them a pencil!

So the long and the short of it is, that the pro-life movement isn't about the preciousness of human life. Not at all. It's about religious "ethics" concealing a fascist rhetoric that seeks to condemn and control those factions of life that fascist always go after first: the weak. People who get abortions are obviously women, but are also predominantly people of color, people who are poor, and a quarter of them are people who are under 20 and who maybe honest-to-God just didn't know what would happen when they had sex, because no one told them. The anti-abortion movement, once you clear away all it's irrational rhetoric, isn't about life, it's about sexism, racism, and power.

And what's scariest of all, do you know how fascist in power always go after their victims, how they prey on the weakest and most vulnerable segments of society? By claiming that they're their victims, or that they are standing up for the rights of the victims (in this case, the unborn child). Take a look at Theodor Adorno's case for this-- he very clearly lays out how the Nazi justified their crimes against the Jews by blaming all of Germany's problems on them. And so all our budget woes and social disintergration is not free market capitalism run-amok, or disingenuios politicians who serve only their coporate pantheons of gods, but poor high-school girls who don't know how to keep their pants on, and a morally bereft liberal media... oh wait, the morally bereft liberal media is owned by conservatives. Sometimes I just can't cobble the "logic" together the way they can...

One last note: some of you out there may know I'm a Christian, and may be shocked, yes shocked, by the revelation (heh heh again). But I am, and that's why murderous hate-filled fear-mongers who hurt people and ruin lives in the name of Christ so royally piss me off. I'd like to advise them to actually read about the God they say they worship. He hung out most of the time with prostitutes and convicts and yes, even that scum of human existence, tax-collectors. Why? Because they were the ones who needed Him the most. So I'm going to get some bumper stickers printed up if anyone wants them: "Just 'cause I'm a Christian doesn't mean I'm an Ignorant Bigot" and "Pro-Choice and Pro-Christ". How's that for contradiction.