SXSW has released the band list for the music conference this year. It’s in today’s Austin Chronicle and you can also see the list on the SXSW site.
I’ll unabashedly point out that my band has made the list this year. We’re looking for a label for our second CD, so come check us out. I don’t know date, time or venue yet.
Let the countdown to SXSW mayhem begin.
So, the biggest day for primaries coincides with Mardi Gras. I guess this has happened before, but I just like saying “Super Fat Tuesday”.
I’m obviously for Obama. I think he’ll do well enough to keep in the race today. I posted the letter from GYWO’s David Rees yesterday. I’ve got several video links today, so you don’t even have to do much reading.
The Will.i.am, celebrity-studded, Yes We Can video – this is adapted from Obama’s New Hampshire Primary speech
Lawrence Lessig’s 20 minutes on why he’s for Obama and not Clinton. Lessing is a Stanford law professor and is very tech savvy with an amazing record on copyright. He’s also got a personal story that I’ve always connected with, so I give his opinion a lot of weight. I think the first 3/4 is right on. I do think Lessig overstates the impact of Obama’s election on peace at the end of the video.
Here’s the Lorna Brett Howard video referred to by Lessig’s video on why she switched from Clinton to Obama.
And if you’re not reading Robert Reich’s blog, you should start.
Ok, one more that I forgot, Questlove from The Roots reminds us of some things that we shouldn’t forget.
[tags]obama, clinton, lessig, yeswecan, lornabretthoward, switch, videos, election, primaries, democrats, questlove[/tags]
Here’s David Rees via John Hodgman with a good reason why you should vote for Obama instead of Clinton this time around. Tomorrow’s Super Tuesday, so this is relevant for a lot of people. I’m kind of hoping that it stays close so that Texas will have some say in who gets the nomination for once.
One day after The La was on News8, I got interviewed for Fox 7 while dropping off the sibling transfer request for The La at AISD headquarters.
The first Saturday in February is typically the first day to submit transfer requests for the following fall in AISD. Local network news stations just love to cover the spectacle of parents camping out in the cold on Friday night at AISD headquarters. Every year, at least one local news station shows shots of tents and parents sitting in folding chairs, bundled up against the February cold.
I showed up at AISD headquarters around 10:30 yesterday morning to submit a priority transfer for my daughter in the fall. Fox7News grabbed me for an interview and added a portion of it to the end of their story on the transfer campout. AISDs transfer policy is pretty flexible and gives priority to transfers in a number of situations: majority to minority, sibling transfer, and tracking transfers. You can get more information on AISD’s transfer info page.
A friend hand makes coats for little girls. She needed some models for a News8Austin story. The La is in the video. The coats look nice, although they’re a bit too much for my tastes.
Rachel Ray, the Food Network star that chef and author Anthony Bourdain loves to slam, is apparently hosting a showcase at this year’s SXSW called Feedback – a feast of hot bands and tasty foods .
If that’s not weird enough, she asked Battles and Holy Fuck to play the party because she’s a big fan (here’s the evidence). Battles has declined since they’re not doing SXSW this year.
Let’s imagine a situation where I get to ask a town hall forum-type question of my two current senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Two Republican senators who have pretty much rubber stamped everything their fellow Republican Texan President has done in the White House for the past 7 years. Two senators who are standing with the President on the current FISA bill and against the American people. I’d ask them,
“Senators, I’d just like to ask you if you’re going to treat the next President of the United States in the same way that you’ve treated the current one? Presumably, you’re ok with the next President and the one after asserting ‘unitary executive’, issuing dozens of signing statements in which he or she decides to selectively ignore sections of bills that have been passed by the legislature and signed into law? Presumably, you’re ok with getting rid of a system of checks and balances that has served us well over the past 232 years? You’d prefer to let a President and his administration run the country on their own without any input from the people or their elected representatives? Because that’s what you’ve done for the last 7 years and that’s what you’re doing right now.”
Men’s Health has ranked Austin as the seventh drunkest city in America.
Seventh? Come on people, we need to drink more.
Here’s how they ranked the cities. We didn’t rank in the top ten on any of the criteria, so it must’ve been a cumulative effect. I suspect that having a large university and being in Texas helps us the most.
At least Texas has 3 cities in the top ten: Austin, San Antonio and Lubbock. San Antonio beat us out of sixth by only one point. Colorado scored two cities in the top three with Denver scoring first and Colorado Springs taking third, another city with a large university.
Jason Burns from Metroblogging Los Angeles called us out on the recent news that Texas was named as the biggest carbon polluter in the nation. Sure, our governor is a complete moron and whore to special interests, but it doesn’t mean that all of us are truck driving rednecks who don’t care about the environment.
I’m pretty sure that on most days, I can see less smog than Jason can. Of course, I’m only speaking for Austin. I’m not too sure about Houston and the surrounding area. I’ll point to current Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s presentations on climate change and we’re at the top or near the top of green cities in the US for the last several years. The Austin City Council is even looking at banning plastic bags. Take that, Los Angeles!
I’d be willing to be that Debbie Howden is one of those California transplants.