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.