come back, 8-10 readers!

i've prepared a nice long post!

1. Robert Mugabe and the Problem from Hell.
I'm sure I don't really need to blog about the ruthless efficiency with which Mugabe circumvented democracy (again) to maintain his stranglehold over Zimbabwe. So I'll just mention this last chance for something good to happen. Mugabe is attending an African Union summit in which the legitimacy of Zimbabwean elections will certainly be subject to debate. Sadly, these discussions are going to be mediated by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, who had an opportunity to decry what was happening, and spectacularly blew it. Mostly because South Africa has its hand in the politically corrupt pot as well. Nevertheless, this summit is a last gasp at some type of negotiation.

I can't even fault the US position here, which is to support tightening of economic sanctions. Its just that its not going to work. I mean, first of all, the nation is already dirt poor with something like a 200,000% inflation rate. Which essentially is resulting from Mugabe and his cronies printing tons of money to ship overseas, as well as keep some portion for themselves to stay afloat, while sadistically devaluing the currency of his constituents. Will he really care if the country gets a little poorer?

2. Barack Obama Plays the Game.
He comes out in reasonable support of gun control, against restriction of capital punishment to only murder, and in support of this congressional garbage allowing wiretapping. It doesn't take a genius to see that most of these are political maneuvers to try and win the fight over moderates, but don't expect a bleeding heart liberal like me to be happy about that shit. Now, he has a solidly liberal voting track record in the Senate, so all is not totally lost, but come on Barack. That wiretapping bill sucks.

There's a nice article in the Times about his poor response to being labeled as Muslim. I mean, he's barely giving it a Jerry/George style "not that there's anything wrong with that!" Plus, its a little depressing for the state of tolerance in our country to read a quote like this:

“The joke within the national Muslim organizations,” Ms. Ghori said, “is that we should endorse the person we don’t want to win.”

I know that Obama has delivered very stirring speeches on race and religion, so I'm disappointed in this type of behavior.

3. The Supreme Court rules on gun control and restricts capital punishment.
I don't have that much to say about this. I was actually encouraged by what I've read of the Scalia decision, which reminded those reading that this was not a decision permitting unfettered gun ownership. But I don't think everyone sees it that way:

“I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the N.R.A., said in a statement.

So there are 2 possibilities. Either people will see this as framing the debate along more rational lines, eliminating moronic hyperbolic arguments ("they won't let us protect ourselves!" "they want people walking around with AK-47s in their trenchcoats!"), or gun enthusiasts will smell blood and go for the jugular. As we see above, one of these already appears to be true.

4. Are we sort of friends with North Korea now?
No. And lets not pretend that this big showy 'disarming' by North Korea is some huge diplomatic accomplishment of any sorts. This fantastic Slate article describes how the Bush administration serially screwed the pooch with this thing over and over again until we got where we are now, with less leverage than ever before, basically hoping that a country that has exploited loopholes and renegged on verbal agreements while reprocessing plutonium has suddenly turned a moral corner:

"There is one big difference between 1994 and 2008: The United States had lots of leverage back then—and it has very little now. There are two reasons for this. First, when Clinton dangled the threat of force in front of the North Koreans in '94, they might have believed he'd really use it; Bush never even dangled a threat, and, with military forces stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, such growling wouldn't have been credible anyway. Second, and more important, by 2008, the North Koreans had already reprocessed plutonium and set off an atomic bomb; they were a bona fide "nuclear state." They could walk away from the table with a more sincere shrug than we could."

5. Has SportsCenter lost its touch?
According to Slate, yes, in an article in which they paint the current anchors as sycophantic shells of Dan and Keith with a Tic Disorder-like catchphrase obsession. I for the most part agree with them (particularly because I long for the days of Craig Kilborn's "Yahtzee!" and Dan's "the whiff.." and have sworn a blood oath against Scott Van Pelt's "f'thray" and Linda Cohn's stupid first-last name merge nicknames (I-Rod, ManRam, etc.)). But I disagree once it gets to pinning their failures on an obsession with showy, unimpressive basketball highlights. I'm sorry, Matt Feeney, but that's when you stop sounding like a scholar and start sounding like an octagenarian who liked the game more when it was slower and Jeff Hornacek would make the All-Star Team. Well, anyone who's awake enough to keep up knows that the level of skill in basketball continues to skyrocket, so please cut this "glory days" garbage. Allen Iverson can break Hornacek's ankles and then rap about it. Suck on that, Feeney.

6. Why is it so bad that Roger Federer is so good?
It's not. Stop hating on a once in a lifetime athlete. Read David Foster Wallace's virtuoso essay on Federer's greatness for confirmation.

7. Is Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III a Classic?
Sort of. Lil Wayne is like what Andre 3000 could have been if Andre hadn't tried to turn into Prince and ended up jumping the shark 8000 times puncuated by a mediocre album that wasn't half as good as its counterpart (I'm talking to you, The Love Below). He's capable of sounding like an extremely self-aware pop sellout ("Lollipop"), or deep/introspective ("Mr. Carter"). On Tha Carter III he's sort of an amalgamation of all things, and he does so successfully. But I personally enjoy his albums where he he still felt that he was the best rapper to whom no one gave credit. That is why, if asked, I'd tell anyone to download his absolutely inimitable Tha Carter, or his mixtape Da Drought 3, or even The Leak, a release of some tracks that, in my opinion, would have improved Tha Carter III ("I'm me", "Gossip"). Still, Lil Wayne is awesome, and I'm glad he set a nice standard which I can only hope will be matched by...

8. The Return of The Clipse.
Who, if you remember, penned one of my all time favorite hip-hop albums, Hell Hath No Fury. This is such a razor-sharp album that it basically defined a new niche of hip-hop, coke-rap (check out this very interesting perspective on the birth of coke-rap, from of all places, the New Yorker). So, according to Pitchfork, we can expect a new Re-Up Gang album in August and a new Clipse album in November.

and finally,

9. Is it time to start getting unhealthily excited about The Dark Knight?
yep.

baseball and statistics!

what could combine to be better? this cool hardball times article attempts to quantify the value of a playoff win. nice.

i have so much else to say, and so like last week, i'll list it to make sure i get to it:
- more mugabe, more UN.
- Obama's ever-increasingly religious platform, and the voters who don't fit that demo
- supreme court rules on gun control
- north korea gets safer
- how is the recession affecting plastic surgeons and amusement parks?
- how smart is an octopus?
- there's a 3rd VEGF, and its important?
- what's so important about len bias?

see? told you i have a lot to say. i'll try to get to it all in the next few days.

i know its been awhile

since ive posted. and today isn't really much better, so i'll just leave it at this: if the UN can't respond to the repeated calls to action in Zimbabwe, its basically their obituary as far as i am concerned.

this week's top 5!

1. michelle obama - EVERYONE read this fascinating profile of michelle obama. this woman is (hopefully) going to be a badass first lady. i think this is interesting because middle-aged white women tend to dominate the swing vote. they are very much at stake in this election, even more so because of hilary clinton. and it is being said that the potential first ladies could play a role in how they vote. now, nothing against cindy mccain, but michelle brings quite a bit more to the table.

2. conan o'brien - for some reason i feel like revisiting this article from some time ago, which came out shortly after conan was officially announced as leno's successor. its a phenomenal profile of one of the top 5 people with whom id love to hang out. (off the top of my head, my 5 person rat pack would be: myself, conan, dave chapelle, tina fey, and either charles barkley or brian williams.) i like that he takes his craft seriously and is more intense than he lets on. but not too seriously, as evidenced by his hilarious fake strike diary. i think that he went to an entirely new level of transcendence during the writer's strike. how many people watched these episodes? without writers, he was really free to pursue his totally scatterbrained humor instincts, and they were AMAZING. from having modern dancers punctuate each one of his punch lines to fitting his desk to a zamboni to his awesome wedding ring spin challenge, i loved every second. i would totally buy a dvd of his strike episodes. and if you havent seen the conan-colbert-stewart brawl...now's your chance.

3. mukesh ambani - this is a very nice profile of an interesting sort-of indian bill gates whose influence is sure to rise. while i think that referring to his ambitions as "gandhi-esque" is ridiculous because he owns a large for-profit corporation, his interests in small-scale rural production (thus empowering lower SES areas of india) echo those sentiments. on the other hand, i never like these sort of insular, ultra-nationalistic personalities.

4. pfizer/lipitor - as someone in science, this is a big conundrum for me. well not this particular situation, in which pfizer is lollygagging so that they can squeeze some more money out of Lipitor, but in general, patents help new drugs happen, and money in the hands of pharma often does lead to new and productive discoveries. to be honest, alot of the best research there is in drug development comes out of drug companies. so how do we facilitate consistent r&d while at the same time preventing price gouging of the consumer?

5. Lil Wayne, The Clipse, and The Roots - ... maybe i'll post about this later.

how do neutrophils distingish between chemotactic cues?

If you're a neutrophil (unlikely, but still), you're often bopping around the blood and lymph. Your migration is somewhat random, but you might be 'attracted' to move towards different stimuli: a bacterial chemoattractant would be most interesting (since you are a neutrophil and thus a soldier of the innate immune system), but you might be 'distracted' by other chemoattractants (often secreted by other immune cells). Well, how would you distinguish between cues? A smart dude named Bryan Heit, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, tells us how. Check it out.

Edit: and here is a link to a preview of this article by Dan Billadeau, who does pretty awesome work himself on cytoskeletal dynamics in T cells.

boston celtics thoughts

i'm not a celtics fan, but its cool to see a team that won the championship primarily because of incredible team defense and sacrifices from 3 (albeit aging) superstars. also, lets all celebrate for KG, who as has been repeated ad nauseum over the past few years, is probably not your prototypical thrive-in-the-last-seconds, MJ-type, but was truly an unselfish team player all year and anchored the true strength of this team (defense).



oh, and stay tuned, because here's what i have on my radar over the next day or 2:
- darwinism
- michelle obama
- lipitor/the pharmaceutical industry
- intelligent design
- conan o'brien

coldplay: viva la vida

I'm the type of person who is always hopeful about Coldplay. Of course, that's because I'm an idiot, but lets go into more detail. They write pretty strong melodies, have in my opinion a very talented guitarist who (when he has a chance to breathe) can write some strong riffs, have a flair for the dramatic, and have the ability to expand their instrumentation (albeit mostly with piano).

The problems? 1) Not exactly measured doses of the aforementioned items. 2) They throw in the truly unforgivable sin of soft-rock, major chord, earnest sappiness. 3) Every time they choose to change up their sound, they do it by selecting one technique and beating it mercilessly to death.

So with that, Viva La Vida.

The Good: I've already mentioned their solid first single, Violet Hill. This is why they are frustrating - because they are clearly capable of getting it right. They showcase their guitarist, keep the emoting to a minimum, make it a little more dramatic with the stomp-like piano, and keep it out of major. They pull this off exactly one other time on this album, with Lost, another fantastic song where they accomplish all of these things. Finally, their iTunes song, Viva La Vida, despite violating many of these rules, is pretty good. I like the instrumentation, and it's a strong melody. Plus, the lyrics are a little strange, but at least they are interesting.

The Bad: Every other stupid song on this album. They beat the eastern influence to death with a bunch of stupid sitar-like guitar effects which start on their first track, Life in Technicolor. The rest of the tracks aren't even worth mentioning. They're just hallmark card sentiment, overproduced, generic major chord progression, eastern-twinged blathery garbage. And the annoying part is that the 3 decent songs are good enough that I'll probably pay attention to their next release as well.

So How Do I Restore My Faith In Music?: Wolf Parade has a new album, and I have yet to share my thoughts on Lil' Wayne.

Don't worry, I have thoughts beyond music (which has dominated my recent post). Uninformed political opinions and weirdo human interest links are sure to follow.

...

initial verdict on new coldplay: infuriating, for reasons that im sure to blather on about by the end of the day.

PSH rocks out, Jonah Hill harmonizes.

I'm not sure how I feel that yesterday was my 3rd Bang Camaro experience. I guess, if hard-pressed, I would go with "fine". For those of you not in the know, Bang Camaro is a metal band from Boston who's claim to fame is their use of 3 guitarists and anywhere from 10-15 vocalists yelling lyrics like " Rock it up!/Lock it down!/Rock it right!/Bring the night!" and so on. I don't really have any problems with this - they have killer guitarists and a really phenomenal drummer.

My issue is with their decision, at this most recent concert, to venture into the land of harmony. The way I see it, the awesome thing about Bang Camaro is the impact of 15 dudes yelling lyrics in unison. If you throw 3-part harmony in there, all of a sudden they sound alot less like Motorhead and unsettlingly more like Bon Jovi. If theyre going to do any harmony, it should be 5ths and that's it. Power chord style. Also, one of the singers looks like Jonah Hill with a peach-fuzz goatee. And another dude kept putting his hand to his ear, like he's trying to locate the pitch while 14 other guys yell borderline incoherently. Trying to locate your pitch Stevie Wonder style is another action that in my mind is antithetical to the Bang Camaro vision statement, such as it is.


On the other hand, the Giraffes seem abundantly clear on how to sell themselves. According to Alex, its by sounding "like Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden." I guess they do, kind of, although the lead singer, Aaron Lazar, has a half-spoken, half-singing style that reminds me of the Hold Steady. In any case, he's pretty impressive on stage, managing to yell over the on point guitar work of founder Damien Paris. Who, by the way, plays a lefty guitar, which is re-strung so it looks like its a righty guitar that just got flipped over by a lefty. Weird, but also, awesome.

And as a final thought - everyone should try and see shows at Bowery Ballroom when they can. It's a great venue.

my liberal love affair with rolling stone

its true, their music and movie reviews are kind of a joke now, but if there is a (kind of) news agency willing to go toe-to-toe against the o'reillys and hannitys of the world, its rolling stone's politics section. check out this vitriolic indictment of john mccain. now, no doubt they are laying it on pretty thick, but how can you argue with this?

McCain's transformation is so complete that at a recent town-hall meeting in Nashville, when asked to name an author who inspired him, the candidate — who once described televangelists of the Jerry Falwell genus as "agents of intolerance" — put none other than Joel Osteen at the top of his list. "He's inspirational," McCain said.

oh, man. that is awesome.

missy, revirginization, intelligent design, iran

With the announcement that a new Missy album is dropping this summer (apparently called Block Party), I thought I'd do a little aside on how I think the Missy-Timbaland collaboration is the best form of one type of hip-hop. I actually like her old stuff (Supa Dupa Fly and Da Real World) better than her newer stuff. In any case, Missy and Timbaland together really pushed a different kind of style in hip-hop, putting a lot more emphasis onto using different rhythms (particularly their pioneering of a more staccato style with emphasis on the off-beats). Their raps also tend to have more of a sonic component to them, which makes them more listenable. I mean obviously as a female rapper there are a bunch of other reasons that Missy is a pioneer. I would also say that its totally LAME that Timbaland is seen as more of a visionary than she is - frankly, her album without him (The Cookbook) is far superior to any of his solo albums (whose names i don't even remember), but they're definitely the best when they work together. So. Missy is the shit.

Coming soon: review of the Bang Camaro/Giraffes show that I am going to see tonight at Bowery Ballroom!

For what its worth, Missy would probably not be very down with this. I would argue that its more societal rather than religious pressure which is making these women want to re-virginize (pay attention to the final paragraph of that story), which makes me even more adamant that religious leaders stand up and urge their constituents to not support this. I mean far be it for me to stop women from doing what they want with their bodies, but this seems like the type of elective procedure that one would not do if there were no pressure to do it.

I completely agree with this editorial opposing movements wanting to teach "the strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. (Forget the fact that "the weakness" is that its obvious correctness interferes with Judeo-Christian chronologies) The point here isn't even necessarily that evolution is right and believing in something else is wrong. The idea is that scientific inquiry is good.

Apparently, in Zimbabwe, you can not only get arrested for winning the election, but for saying who won the election.

In other news, tension mounts in relations with Iran as Ahmadinejad is really trying to call the bluff of the UN (and the US, for that matter). Chancellor Merkel, despite the photo-ops, is not really aligned with President Bush. Mostly because she favors diplomatic interventions that proceed under the aegis of the UN. The question is, why type of sanctions are likely to have the most efficacy?

Finally, game 4 of Lakers-Celtics tonight. You know Kobe is going to show up, and so will the Celtics defense. The question is which front line will dominate: the Lakers' (primarily Odom and Gasol) or the Celtics (some combination of Garnett, Pierce, Perkins). We'll see.

violet hill video, precedent

coldplay in the house! it would be nice to see their snarl be a little more directed...but nevertheless...nice work.



however, it has to be said...so i'll say it. nine inch nails already did this, and they did it live. (and of course, with less humor).

kin selection in plants!!!

Two cool science pieces in the times this morning. The first, and way (scientifically) cooler, suggests proof that plants help out other plants that are related to them! Crazy.

The second isn't quite as cool. It's about an auction. And, sadly, i can't afford this, but if i could, it would be an awesome coffee table discussion piece.

spoke too soon?

Slate has a well-written article on why Jim Webb might not be the ideal running mate. It's a good, quick read.

cool stuff coming out this week!

Music:
Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III: This is a hugely hyped album from pretty much the mixtape king of hip-hop. I'm really interested in it because his flow is still evolving and also because his sound is a little grimier than either more commercial hiphop (kanye, ludacris) and less wholesome than socially responsible hiphop (kweli, common). i also love that he has beef with the clipse, my other current favorite hiphop artist.
Coldplay's Viva La Vida: Well, I loved Violet Hill, but that iTunes commercial song pretty much blows, so we'll see whether they want to make music that sounds urgent or music that belongs on Grey's Anatomy.

Movies:
The Incredible Hulk: It's a little weird to me that nobody seems at all excited about this. Is the Hulk not interesting because he's not personable or good looking? I guess, but Bruce Banner is so interesting for so many reasons! (described here). And most importantly - he's a SCIENTIST!
The Happening: I'm not really a big MNS fan. His stuff is too formulaic. And the Happening seems like a lame version of Zodiac. David Fincher could kick M. Night's ass.

Other thoughts:

Cool Weekend New York Times Magazine Focus on Architecture: particularly, an awesome article on this company called MVRDV that suggests novel architectural solutions for overpopulation, and another on the challenges facing the sudden construction of instant cities to support exploding economies.

The Machinery of Hope: I'll be the first to admit Rolling Stone's liberal homerism, but this is a great article on the success of grassroots efforts to drive voter turnout by the Obamachine.

Musicians like Obama: Bob Dylan and Nas both endorse him. Nas even raps about it in a track called "Black President" which is pretty cheesy. But, I'm just being biased because I'm a Lil Wayne fanboy at the moment.

China's SATs Basically Suck: Or do they? A huge national standardized test allows for economic mobility, but at the same time suppresses more creative intellectual pursuits.

Finally, Sufjan Stevens is awesome. Why? many reasons, but the most recent being his awesome takedown of Vampire Weekend, who (and I don't care that Mark Davis' daughter dates one of the band members) suck:

"Sometimes I worry that the ever-increasing trend toward excessive innovation has pushed the art and music world into a slapstick exhibition of dog breeding, generating increasingly newer, more contemporary fashions: gothic folk, for one. Or Afro-beat Ivy League pop."

Ha ha! Take that, stupid reggaeton-pop-rock fusion losers!

yeah, but where was the explosion?

thanks to annie for the freakin coolest article ever: a deconstruction of the obama fist-pound!

im into it. they are totally more badass than they let on. i want to hear michelle on the next lil' wayne mixtape.

cool science

check out this cool nature paper describing a method for uptake of charged nucleotides by early proto-cells allowing them to undergo replication in the absence of complex macromolecules. pretty awesome stuff.

also, someone has used neural stem cells to restore myelination of myelin-deficient mice!!! awesome stuff. check out the summary in nature news or the actual article in cell stem cell. on the left: red tagged descendants of transferred stem cells delineating their spread throughout the entire nervous system.

sigh.

Zimbabwean Opposition Leader Held by Police

Something has to be done...but what?

slate agrees with me!!

about the united nations, at least. good god. show a little spine, UN. to quote egregiously from the article:

"In fact, the root of Burma's humanitarian crisis is a political crisis. The root of Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis is a political crisis, too. But because the United Nations was never set up to deal with political crises, it can't really address either humanitarian crisis. Officially, the United Nations has to respect the decision of the Burmese government not to feed its people. Officially, the United Nations feels it has to invite Mugabe to Rome, despite the E.U. ban. Indeed, one U.N. official justified his presence on the grounds that the United Nations is "about inclusiveness, not exclusivity."

Sure. I mean, how could we not invite an iron-fisted despot who reserves food aid for his supporters and who has condemned his constituency to living on less than a dollar per day to a conference on the international food crisis?

Hey, help keep This American Life alive!

Yeah, but where did the lighter fluid come from?

EDIT: Mugabe has banned CARE from acting in Zimbabwe. Lets just let the article speak for itself:

“Funds are being channeled through nongovernmental organizations to opposition political parties, which are a creation of the West,” Mr. Mugabe said. “These Western-funded NGOs also use food as a political weapon with which to campaign against government, especially in the rural areas.”

Clearly, giving food to starving people in rural areas: assholes. If you happen to disagree, go to www.care.org to donate or help this cause.

amazing.

again, im ridiculously late with this, but holy crap, the onion's thoughts on the presidential candidates is revelatory, and biblically so.

no, seriously, it is funny.