The president’s answers were notably long at his last press conference. Although reporters have been told to expect crisper ones this time, Henry pointed out that the long ones can be smart strategy.
“He can get his message out by hitting five or six points instead of just one or two,” Henry said. “But also, the longer the answer, the more people kind of forget the question, and it can take the sting off. At that first news conference, there were some answers where I was thinking, ‘What did that guy ask again?’”
Pat Crawford of the Center for Weight and Health at the University of California, Berkeley, remembers when sugar was such a loaded word that cereal makers changed the name of products like Sugar Pops to Corn Pops.
Even though overall consumption of caloric sweeteners is starting to drop, Dr. Crawford says an empty calorie is still an empty calorie. And it does not matter whether people think sugar is somehow “retro,” a word used to promote new, sugar-based versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew called Throwback.
“If people really want to go back to where we were, that means not putting sugar in everything,” she said. “It means keeping it to desserts.”
Amen
The obviously better solution would be to assign seats on a rotating basis, assuring that all media, big and small, corporate and independent, get regular shots at being able to ask questions from the front rows. The public would certainly get a wider range of issues and matters attended to that way.
Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers; doctors and innovators; patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years: we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research. And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield.
Countless people, suffering from many different diseases, stand to benefit from the answers stem cell research can provide. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to do everything in our power to find cures for these diseases – and soon. As I’ve said before, time is short, and life is precious.”
"So yeah, it leaked. I'm happy people are loving it. Makes me smile! Just
remember it's not a top notch sonic example. So keep that in mind."but later on his blog he explains
"I have conflicting opinions about it, as it's really complicated, but ultimately it saddens me that a bummer-quality version of Veckatimest is going around. Please consider putting your energies into a pre-order or into waiting till May 26 for the album the way we intend it to be presented."
A PERFECT PARABLE for 2009:
Young Thomas, clever and bright, bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said,
"Sorry Thomas, but I have some bad news, the donkey died."
Thomas replied, "Well, then just give me my money back."
The farmer said, "I can't do that. I went and spent the money already."
Thomas said, "OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey."
The farmer asked, "What are you going to do with a dead donkey?
Thomas said, "I'm going to raffle him off."
The farmer said "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"
Thomas said, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."
A month later, the farmer met up with Thomas and asked,
"What happened with that dead donkey?"
Thomas boasted, "I raffled him off! -- I sold 500 tickets at
two dollars a piece and made a nice profit of $898.00."
The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?'
Thomas said, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."
The farmer shook his head in amazement, and walked away.
A year later, Thomas comes running into the farmer's yard,
out of breath and looking frightened.
"You must help me hide!" cries Thomas.
The farmer asks, "Why? What's wrong?"
Thomas explained, "I went all over the village, hiring people
to sell raffle tickets for the same dead donkey, and then those
people hired other people to go to other villages and
sell raffle tickets for the same dead donkey, and now there are
thousands of raffles taking place all over the kingdom.
Millions of people and pension funds bought my raffle tickets,
but the donkey started to stink and everybody found out it
was dead, so now they want their raffle ticket money back!"
The farmer suggested, "Just pay back the money, Thomas."
"I can't!" Thomas moaned. "I spent it all on bonuses for
my raffle salespeople, and private jets, and huge mansions,
and an opulent lifestyle to which we, in the raffle ticket business,
have become accustomed."
The farmer thought a moment, then smiled.
"Don't worry, Thomas. I know what to do."
Thomas asked, "What can possibly be done?"
The farmer answered, "Your raffle operation is the
biggest business in all the land. It's too big to fail.
The King will bail you out,
for the good of all his loyal subjects.
And with that, Thomas beseeched the King
for billions of dollars to create the R.T.R.P.
(Raffle Ticket Relief Program) to buy back
all the worthless raffle tickets.
Everybody thought that would be the end of it,
but it turns out the King didn't have enough
money to bail out the Raffle ticket holders, so he
issued official "Raffle Bonds" to borrow money
from other lands.
Everybody thought THAT would be the end of it,
except when the rulers of other lands figured out
their lent money was being spent on dead donkey
raffle tickets, they stopped lending it. So the King
decided to just print the money to buy back the
dead donkey raffle tickets.
Everybody thought THAT would be the end of it,
until it turns out that printing money causes each
individual dollar to be worth much less, so prices
for goods and services rose enormously throughout
the kingdom. The King decided to issue a new
paper currency denominated at 1/10th the face value
of the old dollars, and forced everyone to exchange
their old money for new money so prices would
come down to normal again.
Everybody thought THAT would be the end of it,
until the same thing happened with the new currency,
so the people rose up and toppled the King with
torches and pitchforks, and installed a new ruling
government with a new currency backed by gold.
And THEN they all lived happily ever after.
The End.
What they miss is the Obama Code. For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious.” Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.
"No, I'm not there as some policy nut. I was just there to tell them what I saw and hope that there was some way that I could amplify anything that they were doing"
There are two missions here,” David Axelrod said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “He still believes deeply in the ultimate success of this country. But it’s important that people know where we are today and how we get out of the situation we’re in.”
One of the things I learned while hanging out with professional poker players for my book is that the pros rarely have obvious tells or tics. They've learned how to hide and obscure their underlying emotions. (In fact, an obvious display of nervousness is usually interpreted as a form of play acting, which suggests that the player actually has a good hand.) And yet, pro poker players still believe that, when it comes to the interpretation of someone else's anxieties, they can make reasonably accurate guesses, even if they can't explain where these guesses come from. In other words, the players believe that their unconscious brain is constantly picking up the microexpressions of deceit, which allows them to act upon relevant information outside of conscious awareness. When players talk about developing a "feel" for the card game, what they're often referring to is this ability to read the mind of someone else, even when that person is doing everything possible to hide their mind. We know more than we know, and part of what we know is that even the best liars have subtle tells.
I found a series of videos on youtube last night, 6 parts of what looks like a made for television documentary on the late Stella Adler. Its really marvelous to watch for anyone who is interested in how the craft of acting developed in the united states, or for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it feels like to be in class with Stella herself - as it contains at least 20 minutes of footage from her studio . "You're not acting with your soul darling, act with your soul!"
Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free, is akron/family's latest offering. I didn't give their self titled release much of a chance, it sort of slipped through the cracks of 2007 amongst all of the mega-band releases (Radiohead, The National, Spoon, etc.), but this record is undeniably gorgeous . A/F has a unique intellect for musical contradiction, the song Gravelly Mountains On The Moon shifts so violently across genres you sometimes forget where you started - what was once jangly Silver Jews alt-country becomes something grander, a Sondheim musical maybe, and then into a dissident Big Band romp that brings down the house. In many ways they sound like they're an actual family: many voices, emotive sounds, inanimate sounds, and a sort of warmth that wraps the music up like a blanket.
weeks they'll play a set at BAM with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Final Fantasy. Veckatimest, the follow up to GB's hit record Yellow House, is on its way in May (I wish they would include "leak date" in those press releases) and this week we got a tracklisting and some cover art from the band. A quick google lets me know that Veckatimest is a small island in Dukes County, MA. Go figure. If you just can't wait to hear the new album, I came across a bootleg from a GB live show in August which contains a few new tracks. Download it 
hxxp://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mozyjx0wmzq
"I have never seen a White House statement that kicks someone in the balls that hard before."Sam Stein at HuffPo says it brings in to a question the administration's vetting process after the Richardson and Daschle mishaps
Democratic sources close to the White House suggest that President Obama's vetting team was not fully aware of Gregg's position on the census prior to his being nominated to the Commerce post. And when members of the Congressional Black Caucus began airing complaints about a Commerce Secretary who voted to withhold emergency funds for the census, the administration had to reverse course. The decision was made, at first, to strip Gregg of this responsibility, even though it traditionally falls under the Commerce Secretary's purview. But that, in turn, sparked frictions between the Obama team and its second Commerce nominee.
“I’ve been my own person, and I began to wonder if I could be an effective team player,” the New Hampshire Republican said. “The president deserves someone who can block for his policies. As a practical matter, I can contribute to his agenda better — where we agree — as a senator, and I hope to do that.” “The fault lies with me,” Gregg told Politico. He refused to discuss any conversations he had with Obama, saying, “I may have embarrassed myself, but hopefully not him.”
In an unusual statement, spokesman Gibbs puts the blame on the New Hampshire Republican:White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President's agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama's key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart
David Kurtz at TPM cites a hill staffer's quote on how the announcement seemed perfectly timed to take away from the president's event in Peoria to discuss the stimulus.
It's hard not to think that Gregg's withdrawal, with the grumbling about the census and the stimulus, was not timed to cause the most damage possible to the Obama administration. Releasing the statement just as Obama took the stage in Peoria was clearly designed to undermine the President's event. The fact he scheduled a presser only seems to confirm it. The classy exit would have been to wait til tomorrow afternoon to quietly bow out. Basically Gregg decided not just to politely decline, but rather to blow shit up and burn the bridge behind him. Do not think this portends good things for the wider political climate.
Two of my favorites, Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan hit the round table to discuss "Gregg and the GOP's War on Obama"
and Larry Kudlow from the National Review Online thinks the move was brilliant
Three hats off to Judd Gregg for withdrawing his nomination for commerce secretary. And I mean three hats. I’ve never seen anything like this.
I say this not in a partisan-political sense, but in terms of Sen. Gregg’s extraordinary character and integrity. He would not compromise his beliefs.
The Grammy's exclude Leroi Moore from their annual tribute to the fallen legends of music. TMZ has the official statement from Grammyland
I can't remember in my lifetime a president of the US that subjected himself to such an unscripted mass participatory meeting as Obama did today. And yet he was in his element. Intellectually curious people get bored when all chaos as been locked out of our realities, after all. He had the crowd at "hello." And he had them even more so at goodbye. More significantly, he positioned himself as with the people outside the three point line, as their moral representative to push their institutional representatives to, well, represent them, dammit.
I'm not on Facebook, so take what follows with a hefty pinch of salt, but there's some suggestive evidence that the brain might contemplate other people very differently when that person is a virtual Facebook "page" and not a flesh and blood individual, with a tangible physical presence. Humans, after all, are social primates, blessed and burdened with a set of paleolithic social instincts. We aren't used to thinking about people as computerized abstractions.
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I was honored this weekend to be invited to sit for a series of photographs taken by my good friend Shannon Taggart. My take on her work in this series of Men/Women is that she is capturing a kaleidoscope of energetic moods. Some of her subjects look as though they have been caught in a deeply private moment of inner struggle, panic or vulnerability while others are emanating power, warmth, and sexuality. Introspection is a hallmark of many of her characters, and Shannon uses her gift with the lens and the light to mold a symbiotic psychological atmosphere.
When calling to mind the reasons that made the bunkers so appealing to me almost twenty years ago, I see it clearly now as a case of intuition and also as a convergence between the reality of the structure and the fact of its implantation alongside the ocean: a convergence between my awareness of spatial phenomena—the strong pull of the shores
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