This amused me

From a recent book review in The Nation:

The phrase 'public intellectual' originated in the United States, but the real innovation of American life is the 'private intellectual'--that is, one who addresses general issues but does so in such obscure publications, and in such opaque language, that he or she can only reach his or her own colleagues on the faculty at Duke or Yale.

The Carrboro Rap

Watch a music video about the town where I live. It'll give you a feel for the town and some of the local businesses.

Move over NASCAR dads

Here come the Starbucks Republicans:

...mostly young suburbanites who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate and won't hesitate to pay $4 for a triple grande iced caramel macchiato.(link)

What's an election without a new demographic buzzword, really? Of course it's too soon to know if they'll be the group, but if they are I'm sure the media will beat us over the head with the term half a dozen times a day.

John Doan on MySpace

www.myspace.com/jdharpguitar

My guitar teacher from Willamette has a new MySpace page. Go there for four great free Celtic tracks with him playing harp guitar.

Hey, Neil Young: We young singers are hog-tied, too (SF Chronicle)

A piece by my friend Stephan. Worth reading the entire thing.

Dear Neil,

You recently said that you felt compelled to write your new album 'Living With War' because you got tired of waiting for young protest singers to pick up the torch. I'm compelled to tell you that young protest singers are here, and we're holding the flame. I'm one of them.

The trouble is, you can't hear us on major radio stations for the same reasons you noted last year when you poignantly stated, 'I can't do anything in the record industry, or especially radio, because it's so controlled by corporations.'

[...]

Bono was right when, at U2's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, he said, 'There is very little chance for there to be another U2 the way the business is constructed right now.' Describing corporate dependency on the toothless hit single, he said, 'You have to have the hit single immediately. Bruce Springsteen didn't have a single for 10 years. Neil Young, I'm not sure, he ever had a single.'