Senator Hatch’s Hanukkah Gift
I nearly always cringe when I see an old politician wearing headphones in a recording studio – or doing anything involving music and a camera. But Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) doesn’t look that uncomfortable in a recording studio singing “Eight Days of Hannukah, a song he wrote for the holidays; but I still cringed a little….
Here’s Looking At You, Kids
There’s nothing quite like a Phish fall tour. Gone are the chances of showers, lack of a full-on light show, and the soulless sheds of summer. The colder weather has come and, with it, a chance for fans to escape the elements altogether for a more intimate foray into musical escapism. Everyone is here: from…
The Boss Backs Gay Marriage In New Jersey
A Senate vote on gay marriage in New Jersey was delayed today. But that didn’t stop Bruce Springsteen from announcing his support of the bill on his website. Like many of you who live in New Jersey, I’ve been following the progress of the marriage-equality legislation currently being considered in Trenton. I’ve long believed in…
Influenced By US Fundamentalists, Uganda Seeks Death Penalty for Gays
Uganda President Yoweri Museveni is expected to sign into law the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which will expand punishments for gays, including lengthy prison sentences for homosexuals and sympathizers, and impose the death penalty for HIV-positive gays. Homosexuality is already a crime in Uganda, but the Anti-Homosexuality Act creates the new crime of “aggravated homosexuality” and promises…
Paul McCartney’s Meatless Mondays
When I was a kid I was always a little confused by Fishstick Fridays. (And no, I really don’t like fishsticks, but thanks for asking.) Growing up in WASP-y Oregon, I didn’t make the Catholic connection until my teens. I eventually married a vegetarian of Irish-Catholic descent, and together we produced a couple of baby…
This American Phish
Forget about Phish 3.0. For a long time I reckoned there were only two Phish eras: the Clinton years and the Bush years. Having seen the band all three nights at Madison Square Garden last week, however, I’m forced to update that notion. Phish has now fully entered their – and our – Obama phase….
How To Legalize It by Speaking New Jersey
The Garden State is shaping up to be the next state to legalize medical marijuana. Back in February, the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act passed 22-16 in the NJ Senate, and the NJ Assembly health committee passed an amended version of the bill in June. NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D) said he supports…
Chris Jordan’s ‘Running The Numbers’
Hundreds of books have been written about visualizing information, how we transform abstract data into images and concepts that actually mean something to us. Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan takes photographs of common objects, even garbage, and digitally manipulates them into larger statements about mass consumption and waste. The work seen above, for example, is called…
Taqwacore: The Novel, The Movie
In 2002 Michael Muhammad Knight published a remarkable novel called The Taqwacores, which portrayed a fictitious scene inhabited by Islamic punk rockers. The two groups aren’t so different, he writes. “Both began in tremendous bursts of truth a vitality but seem to have lost something along the way – the energy, perhaps, that seems to…
HeadCount To Host SXSW Panel
HeadCount will host a panel at the South by Southwest Music Conference titled “Effecting Social Change via Music and Technology.” SXSW is the premier US music-industry event, attracting up-and-coming musicians, filmmakers, promoters, executives, and entrepreneurs to Austin, Texas, for a week of music, meetings, and revelry. Selected and elected from among hundreds of candidates,“Effecting Social…