For a moment, Anti-Americanism be damned.

Today, in her article "Credit Where It's Due", Janet Albrechtsen made me shiver a little bit with her analogy between other countries' anti-Americanism and the classic parent-teenager relationship. Why? A non-American, she isolated several trends in American philanthropy and aid work that go unrecognized by cavilling international critics, citing specifically the catastrophic situation now in Myanmar, where American relief is waiting on the sidelines while the Burmese military regime tries to figure out whether to let the US give its people much-needed help. Meanwhile, these critics are disregarding US aid efforts as "attempts to undermine the UN" and (re: the 2004 tsunami), "consolidate its hegemony." I could go on, but I suggest you read the article.

In one of Clinton's most recent brilliant political moves, she discounts economists in the gas tax debate saying that she doesn't trust those totally elitist economists, saying: "I’m not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right ... we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively." Is she insane, or just totally irresponsible in her politics?

Has the New York Times un-endorsed Hillary?

So I'm going to stop troubling you buried in my yard

Stephen Malkmus is crazy. When talking about indie/underground music today: "U2 wants to hang around with Arcade Fire. U2 didn't want to hang around with Pavement."

But no, he also wrote: "We just do what we do. I would quantify our sound as more underground than indie, in that it's not catering to a fashion, so much as indie happens to be a fashion now. But the underground lives on regardless. It always does. Because there are so many people making music, and there are enough people just making it to their own taste." (source)

I tend to agree with what he's saying in distinguishing underground music from indie, but what about musicians who are underground who receive sudden and extreme exposure through new media?

Why am I thinking about this? Because I've been watching Pennsylvania returns all night on MSNBC and I need to find some respite from the torture. At least, I have the lovely Matthews/Olberman tag team doing coverage (I didn't really like Olberman until I saw his special comment last month on Countdown).

i was nineteen (call me)

"you showed me my first good glass of red wine, andre," I wrote and erased.

Laying and lazing for a while as they did in Prospect Park, it didn't feel so much to John and Agie like a Thursday afternoon as it did the whole length of a Saturday. Holding one another then, there was no chance in these timeless few hours that it might have rained, the baseball games called in for the day, or the barbecues upended by turbulent wind and wetted paper plates. Although they continued to lay there for a shorter time than they might have thought- they were young and supposed to be other places, after all- the crispness of the air, the bristle of shorn grass and the sounds of cavorting families and friends trolling through these undulating urban hills lent them two and a half hours of eternity, and the most fabulous intimacy only possible in public cuddles of locked limbs and traveling hands.

"Abigail, hush dear," said Mrs. Mary Walker across the sitting room. "It is a mercy these days to have one's things in order. A taxman's life cannot be the most pleasant, to be sure, but it is the profession of the most reliable type of man, and considering the indiscretions of your past, this is most certainly a good match!"

"I could never love a man such as Mr. Parker, mama," Abigail replied, rearranging her bustle in discomfort, perched on a straight-backed chair.

"Blast!," interjected Mr. Walker, "All this nonsense gets us nowhere. Now where's my handkerchief gone to? I'm telling you, the walls in this house are damp."

"They most certainly are not!," rebuffed Mrs. Walker, and then all kept quiet for a while.