PriorBlog

1. I went to the grocery store to pick up some OJ for my poor sick kid, and on the way out I picked up a copy of the Boston Phoenix. I always grab free papers, even the Falun Gong one. Anyhow, as you probably know, the Phoenix has an affiliate radio station WFNX.

FNX is a cheesey commercial station that prides itself on being “cutting edge.” They are always trumpeting the fact that they play new music. In fact, in their full page as in the Phoenix, in big letters are the words “NEW MUSIC. FIRST.”

Let’s dissect. First “sentence.” New Music. On the right hand side of the advertisement there is a list of twenty-two bands. Nine of them were huge when I was in college. That makes what percentage of their new music new? Some of these bands were even big in the mid 80’s. U2?!?! U2 played at Live Aid. They may as well include goddamned Mott the Hoople.

Second “sentence.” First. This station always just happens to forget that there are a bunch of college stations in Boston that get to new music well in before it does. I remember back in my day, which according to the FNX definition of new must have been ten minutes ago, but we’re actually talking about 1993, WZBC was the only station playing P.J. Harvey when she was on Too Pure. Then she got a deal with Island or Electra or whatever, and you know who was told it was okay to play her. ZBC was sponsoring her first Boston show, a show in which anybody in Boston who had bought tickets had heard her from a cd they bought on their own or from a college radio station, but then at the last minute, when the show was already sold out, that sponsorship was ripped away from ZBC and given to those jerk offs at FNX, who had zilch to do with her success.

2. I was reading on boston.com Mitt Romney is getting all high and mighty about Iran, telling the state of New York for some reason, that if it has any pension funds invested in Iran, it should quickly divest. Wha? Of course this jackass didn’t ask first, he just made the pronouncement to look tough on Iran. I guess he did the same thing in Massachusetts a month ago. Looks like a whistle stop tour of the entire United States is in order, to keep pension funds from out of Persian Rugs. Will somebody from New York please come out with the figure (I’m betting 0%) of exactly how much of New York state employees’ pension funds go to Iran, so he can be publicly humiliated.

The best part of the article though is the last paragraph:

Last month, Romney called for economic sanctions against Iran “at least as severe” as those imposed on South Africa during its apartheid era, in an effort to isolate the Central Asian nation and convince it to give up its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Note to Mitt, South Africa developed nukes in large part because they felt themselves internationally isolated. From an aritcle on fas.org by Waldo Stumpf called BIRTH AND DEATH OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMME:

Increasing international restrictions on the supply of conventional arms against South Africa, primarily due to its internal policies, also made the argument that the country virtually had no alternative but to develop its own nuclear deterrent to counter an external threat, probably convincing to the Government of the time.

These narcissistic pols spend more time studying their own image than real issues. I know I am not saying anything new to anybody. We all want them dead, but are too afraid to overthrow the government in the name of common sense. As a fellow coward, I offer these little bits of hypocrisy as entertaining observances and nothing more.