I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
We love how dumb, PG-13 stuff like this turns the Times into a blushing, incoherent, stammering, Midwestern housewife who spells hell with double hockey sticks:
Whatever Ernie Anastos, the longtime New York television news anchor, was trying to say, it did not come out right on Wednesday night. His inadvertent use of what could literally be called a barnyard epithet made him an unintended star on the Internet all day Thursday.
In the course of one of those familiar jocular exchanges, Mr. Anastos, the co-anchor on the 10 p.m. newscast on WNYW (Channel 5), seemed to be referring to the old commercial for Perdue chicken when he suggested to the weatherman, Nick Gregory, that ‚”it takes a tough man to make a tender forecast.”
That was not the objectionable portion of the broadcast, but it may have befuddled some viewers because Perdue has not regularly used that phrase in its advertising since 1993. But then Mr. Anastos added a suggestion for what Mr. Gregory could do with the chickens, using a term that qualifies as the sine qua no-no of live television….
Bruce Greengart, 58, a retired civil servant from Midwood, Brooklyn, said: ‚”You’re not supposed to say those words. Kids may be listening to this thing.”
After watching the clip, Heather Scott, 38, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said, ‚”Oh my God, what is he thinking?” She added: ‚”We’ve all said things that are inappropriate. We’ve all done it, he happens to be broadcasting it.”
Not that she had heard the term that particular way. ‚”What an odd phrase to use,” she said.
Pabst Blue Ribbon, or PBR as it’s so affectionately called, has seen its sales rise 25% this year despite a crippling recession and price hike that brought a case to “$1.50 more than MillerCoors’ Keystone, $1 more than Anheuser-Busch’s Busch and Natural brands, and 50 cents more than Miller High Life.” Hipsters, it’s long been known, have led the charge in making PBR such a powerhorse in the shitty piss-water beer market. But when did this all start? Years ago, Ad age reports.
Back in 2004, Pabst executed a highly effective word-of-mouth campaign that made the long-declining brand an “ironic downscale chic” choice for bike messengers and other younger drinkers who viewed the beer as a statement of non-mainstream taste. PBR sales surged by nearly 17% that year, and have climbed at single-digit rates since, until this year, when the recession sent its sales soaring as more drinkers were pushed into the subpremium category.
You hear that? PBR is now subpremium, which by my scale is way too close to that “mainstream beer” that you all refuse to imbibe in. So what’s next, PBR drinkers? Expect Monday Night Football commercials featuring dudes getting laaaaaid while holding footballs and throwing high fives.
It’s time to let our Ribbon’d friend go, bike messengers and angry youths, and start the hunt for a new icon of the underground to slurp up with your rebellious lips.
My vote? Genny Cream Ale and/or Modelo. Or what if we all just drank Hugs, those little juice drinks that look like grenades. That’ll get ‘em. What’s your vote?
After years of speculation, the most important American band of the Nineties is returning to the stage with the lineup of Mark Ibold, Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West reuniting for dates around the world in 2010. Please be advised this tour is not a prelude to additional jaunts and/or a permanent reunion.
Described in their own Wikipedia entry as having experienced “moderate commercial success,” Pavement’s catalog for the Matador, Domino, Drag City and Treble Kicker imprints has come to define in the eyes of many the blueprint for independent rock over the past generation. An evidentiary compilation release is planned to coincide with the touring sometime in 2010.
The first show announced is a New York performance on September 21, 2010 at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park. A pre-sale begins at 10:00 AM EDT on Friday, September 18, 2009 (tomorrow). The password for the pre-sale is ZOWEE and the ticketing link is http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00004330A3C355DD. The general on-sale is slated for 10:00 AM EDT on Friday, September 25, 2009. Please note that tickets will be available without surcharges from the Nokia Theatre box office in Times Square and from Earwax at 218 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.
Please visit http://www.crookedrain.com for details on this on-sale as well as all Pavement news as it develops.
I was already sitting at my computer on Monday when I “sat down” with Tao Lin (blog, twitter), author of the recently released Shoplifting From American Apparel, to have a little gchat about being fucked, Dan Brown’s new book, and his new life as an internet t-shirt model.
I volunteered that we’d keep this interview embargoed until next week sometime, but am posting it now so the New York Times will see they’re not the only ones breaking those things these days.
The lovely folks over at Pitchfork TV are streaming Todd P Goes To Austin in it’s (16 part) entirety, so in the words of director Jay Buim… Please feel free to watch it from the comfort of your home or on your company’s dime at work. Here’s a clip from the awesome SXSW documentary adventure (after the jump).
Foaming at the mouth for more info on Jay and the Todd P project? Just check out the FREEwilly interview!
Now, head over to Pitchfork and watch the whole thing from the begining…
Though the Wall Street Journal just broke the trend a few months ago, Williamsburg has been the skinny jeans capital of the world for nearly a decade now. So without further ado, here’s installment #04 of our Hipster-of-the-Month series, “Hipster With the Skinny Jeans”! This hipster is designed to sit on the edge of your desk or computer or whatever… his long legs dangling over.
And in case you’ve been wondering why skinny jeans are so popular in the first place, those arbitrators of cool over at WSJ have the scoop:
Explanations abound for why men would want to wear jeans that look so uncomfortable and impractical. Some fashion observers say skinny jeans’ hold on certain men stems in part from the wearers’ desire to show off their gym-sculpted bodies. [...]
The brands also hope the changes will make their skinny jeans appeal beyond the urban hipsters, skater-types, rockers and hip-hop fans who already wear them to men with meatier legs. “I’m an avid cyclist and need to have more room in my jeans because my quads are getting worked on so much,” says Michael Ball, co-founder of premium denim brand Rock & Republic, which late last year added stretch to its men’s skinny jeans [...]
Though the jeans may be getting easier to wear, the look isn’t easy to pull off. The trick is to wear skinny jeans with slim-fitting shirts and pointy-toed dress shoes or dressy boots. Any squarish, loose or, worse still, boxy-fit sweater or shirt can make a man’s proportions look out of whack and his legs way too skinny.
Though the