I'M JUST A BLUE-COLLAR GUY FROM BUFFALO

Sasha Frere-Jones gets serious like crazy.
Natasha Bedingfield: I Wanna Have Your Babies (mp3 at Obtusity)


Don Imus don't wanna kiss the bride, he just wants your lucky charms.
Tim Russert: Comedy Gold

There's an essay-length rant in me about this week's embarrassing Maureen Dowd columns, the concept of backstory in pop music, and basically how everybody is always obsessed with the wrong damn superficial things. You think I have time for that? Well, maybe, but instead I'm just going to humbly suggest you catch up on last night's Bill Moyers examination of the media coverage leading up to the war. Maybe it'll air again? UPDATE: Of course there's totally a snippet on YouTube.

Key points: Knight-Ridder stuck to its guns and kept reporting stories skeptical of Administration intelligence; the facts were out there, but the New York Times and Washington Post preferred to stick to big-name sources; Tim Russert would've included more skeptical voices on Meet the Press-- if only his phone had rung.

Oh, and pretty much everybody who got paid for telling us false things about the Iraq war is doing even better now. William Kristol and Peter Beinart have been rewarded with space in Time. Key Bush speechwriter Michael Gershon scored a Washington Post column. Thomas Friedman is still Thomas Friedman. Charles Krauthammer is still... well, I could tell you, but then he'd have to make a psychiatric diagnosis about you.


It was easy it was cheap GO AND DO IT.
Jarvis Cocker: Running the World

Elsewhere: My Arctic Monkeys album review, Lucky Soul track review, Aliens album review, Franz Ferdinand track review, and Ghosthustler track review on Pitchfork.

Over at TAPPED, Paul Waldman does superlative work debunking Roger Simon's small-minded mythologizing of Bernard Shaw, and expands on his point with some much-needed historical context here-- including David Broder's dumbfounding admission he's basically a world-class bullshitter (via Bob Somerby).


They come here alone, and they leave in twos.
The Teenagers: Homecoming