Hillary Clinton has a genius idea about how to fix the cost of college and the problems plaguing the economy as a result of predatory lending - giving everyone a $5000 bond when they’re born. You know, just a little something for a rainy day.

I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home

This is the kind of innovative thinking that will make he best president of the 21st century thus far - that, and also the ability to locate foreign nations on a map or effortlessly string grammatically correct sentences together. She also knows how to read. Giving everybody five grand is way, way cheaper than subsidizing or capping tution costs, or expanding federal mortgage assistance programs. And the beauty of it is, $5000 dollars will be worth much, much less than it is today.

Good thinking, Hill. Can’t wait to hear the details of your health care plan.

This was posted to the Magazine seciton of nytimes.com a little earlier today. I can’t believe this shoddy journalism. Nowhere in the entire article does it mention Danny DeVito’s superb performance.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency met in Houston, one of the five cities nationwide to hold public hearings, to discuss the first revision to the ozone standard in more than 10 years.

The current level-84 parts ozone per billion parts air-could be changed to a range of between 70 and 75 ppb. EPA’s scientists suggested a 60 to 70 ppb threshold.

When an agency won’t listen to the recommendations from its’ own scientists, who will they listen to?

Cue 12-year-old asthma sufferer Taylor “ Tay” Candelario, whose presentation was supported by the American Lung Association. She addressed the panel with an emotional account of her life with asthma. Ripe with descriptions of the enormous medical costs to her family to the day-to-day inconvenience associated with taking several medications daily to the inability to do “normal kid things.” And, if that weren’t enough to at least form a little knot in the throat, then perhaps the guilt trip did the trick.

I come here today to ask you to be like our country who will send our proud soldiers to back up a country that needs help, a state that helps other states when a hurricane strikes, a city that provides resources to those that can’t help themselves. People with asthma that need help, for the air, in the future that our elders and the people born after us that they won’t have asthma or any other lung problems, for people to live longer, and I come to you today and ask that you can give us hope that our air, my air to be clean once again.

You can be rest assured that Texas is doing everything possible to address the current ozone problem, but still faces “insurmountable challenges.” Thank you Mr. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Chief for that most obvious of updates. Although, the connection between asthma and ozone levels is greatly disputed, the fact still remains that the air is dirty and it needs to be clean. The truth is, the EPA, as well as Texas lawmakers are unwilling to take the necessary measures needed to reach the recommended lower standards.

Unfortunately, one asthma sufferer isn’t enough to open some ears or get some stuffy suits moving, but maybe they will hear this:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Featured Song: “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell


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Source:
Breathe Easier? Not So Much. Dallas Observer

Dan Deacon sounds like a rainbow that threw up. In a good way.

Sue us if we’re a couple of months behind Pitchfork. We realize that’s like three years in nouveau hipster blog trolling years. Regardless of our delay, there are two things that we here at the Culture Warrior are fascinated with: the obscene and the bizarre. Better than either is the obscenely bizarre, which is why we like Dan Deacon so much.

Listening to Dan Deacon is, for the lack of a better word, a trip. With his Masters degree in electro-acoustic composition in hand, this classically trained composer is pretty much the embodiment of musical experimentalism. Opinions on Deacon run the gamut; I’ve had people tell me they love his applesauce brand of noise, and I’ve had others tell me they’re going to have nightmares. Personally, I’m of the former group. There are no, nor should there be, any pretenses to Deacon’s music. It’s unapologetic, it’s crazy, it’s fun.

Deacon is currently on tour with party masters Girl Talk and relative newcomer White Williams and is well-worth your allowance, folks. Houston, be warned: tonight is your night.

Upcoming Shows:
Sept. 24 - Houston, TX @ Walters on Washington [Editor’s Note: No Girl Talk, though]
Sept. 25 - Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
Sept. 27 - San Diego, CA @ Epicentre
Sept. 28 - Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex (SOLD OUT)
Sept. 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Meet & Greet at Virgin Mega Store (4-6)
Sept. 29 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore (SOLD OUT)
Sept. 30 - Oakland, CA @ Lobot Gallery
Oct. 1 - Brekeley, CA @ Lower Sproul Plaza
Oct. 4 - Oberlin, OH @ Dionysus Disco
Oct. 5 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
Oct. 6 - Iowa City, IA @ The Picador
Oct. 11 - St. Louis, MO @ The Billiken Club
Oct. 12 - Grinnell, IA @ Grinnell University Gardner Lounge
Oct. 17 - New York, NY @ CMJ: Bowery Ballroom
Oct. 19 - Bennington, VT @ Bennington University
Oct. 20 - Alfred, NY @ Alfred University

Featured Song: “Splish Splash” by Dan Deacon


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Featured Song: “Ohio (Demostration Version)” by Dan Deacon


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I like this posting on Jezebel because it reminds me of my IR-geeked-out Alma Mater, where, in the School of International Service on Several Occasions my fellow baristas and I held animated discussions wondering whether it was Wrong that, yeah, maybe Ahmedinejad is Tall, Dark, ‘n’ Handsome. Yeah? Am I right?

“Science is a divine gift, and the heart is where it resides.” Image via Ahmedinejad at Columbia

Abe knows how to keep it real through the ages sporting his classic limestone look

If you are leafing through the New York Times Travel Mag today, you might notice the long article on Washington, DC. You might also wonder why the pages are stuck together - we certainly do. Let’s discuss.

After a sentence or two regarding the political barriers being broken by women in minorities in Washington (inept house Speaker Pelosi, Dynasty heiress Clinton, Barrack Obama) and then:

Similarly, after waiting decades for some of its blighted neighborhoods to amount to something other than block after block of boarded-up abandonment, Washington is buzzing with energy. The H Street corridor is starting to hum, with cafes and bars including the Rock and Roll Hotel, a new music club that hosts bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Solillaquists of Sound.

We’ll leave out the obvious point that most thing’s are over by the time the Times gets around to writing about them to discuss the more elusive aspect of this article: what the fuck are they talking about?

The boxes from CW’s Big Move from DC to NY aren’t quite unpacked yet, so we feel as though we have some insight into the goings-on in the nation’s capital. Is Washington a more interesting place than when we got there four long years ago? With more bars and things, it certainly is. But despite the recent proliferation of venues, galleries and the blogs like BYT and Panda Head to keep track of it all, we still feel that such things a hotbed of style does not make.

We don’t mean to be a downer and we definitely don’t want to sound bitter. It’s just that, you know, if you go to DC looking for Williamsburg, you’re not going to find it. You’re just going to pay too much for a PBR at a place Dave Grohl owns and talk to a lot of kids who have lived their entire lives in Silver Spring.

Maybe we’re being unfair. We have a whole host of pretty rad friends from our time there that we hop to keep track of for as long as we can and there’s no better place on earth to radicalize a person’s politics than Washington, where crazy policy manifests itself in a very tangible way. But still, are we wrong about this? Are we denying our roots are giving in to self-loathing?

We love DC, just not because of it’s pulsing cultural community. Comment away.

You may have noticed that the blog has been pretty much silent since around September 11. This is because we were paying our respects to the memories of those who lost their lives on that tragic day, and also to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice fighting the terrorists Over There. Also, we all graduated from college and got jobs. Buy anyway now we’ve done that and we’re back and we’re excited about getting this thing going again.

Also, a housekeeping note: Culture Warrior has relocated its world headquarters from The Seat of Democracy, Moshington, DC to the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, NY and we have to say that being the poster children for gentrification isn’t nearly as bad as it seems when someone else is doing it. The amount of space you get for your money really is unparalleled. There isn’t really anywhere to hang out, but real estate is so cheap out here we figure we’ll open a coffee shop and a bar.

Anywho, this is really just a check in to say we’re thinking about you. We also wanted to mention we noticed that our traffic spiked on 911 and we’re sorry we didn’t have any refreshingly irreverent content for you. It’s not that we were too lazy, honestly. It’s just that it seemed so… *yawn*. We tried to find a scribble we made on the last 911 and post it because that would have been a pretty pomo way to handle the day but we couldn’t find it. Oh well. There’s always next year.

See you Monday.