Urban Kook Podcast

The latest Washington Post/ABC poll in Iowa shows Barack Obama four points ahead of Hillary Clinton.  In her New York Times column today, Maureen Dowd sums up why the former First Lady is having so much trouble in her campaign: lack of authenticity.

The public still has no idea of what part of [Hillary] is stage-managed and focus-grouped, and what part is legit. It’s pretty pathetic, at this stage of her career, that she has to wage a major offensive, by helicopter and Web testimonials, to make herself appear warm-blooded.

For full text of Dowd's column:  The New York Times

With her boyfriend about to be released from prison, Miss Ohio visits La Jean Beauty Parlor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to get a little glamor into her life. It took several cans of hairspray to achieve maximum height for her beehive.

Show Notes

1. According to a review at billburg.com, La Jean Beauty Parlor will have you "bowing down before the altar of rat combs and peroxide." It's old school.

2. For more on the hipster capital of America, check out Free Williamsburg.

3. "Everybody Loves My Hair," by Captain WAM of the Podsafe Music Network.

4. Search The Hair Archives for more information on the beehive.

By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — It was a partial clause in a sentence uttered in Muscatine, Iowa. But Bill Clinton's assertion Monday that he'd opposed the Iraq war "from the beginning" triggered outbursts across the political spectrum. From the left, the right and the media establishment, the judgment was the former president had committed a gaffe that could hurt his wife's presidential bid. STORY: Bill says Hillary can put U.S. on track "Bill Clinton Rewrites History on Iraq?" wondered ABC News' Political Radar blog. "A political blunder of monumental proportions," Dan Spencer wrote at the conservative Redstate.com. At liberal DailyKos.com, the headline was "Bill Clinton's 'truthiness' problem."

Clinton's comment, reported by the Associated Press, came in a discussion of tax cuts for wealthy Americans during wartime. "Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers," he said. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign posted quotes Tuesday from Bill Clinton in which he highlighted his reservations about using force. Before the war started in 2003, he said that "we don't invade everybody whose regime we want to change" and that if Saddam Hussein disarms, the United States should seek regime change by helping his rivals. "As he said before the war and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs," said campaign spokesman Jay Carson.

Clinton was more oblique in Little Rock and Iowa City less than a week after the invasion. "Whatever our politics" and "whatever your views," he said, it was time to support President Bush and the troops. Bloggers, however, posted quotes that underscored Clinton's support for Bush and concern about Saddam. For instance:

•In April 2003 in New York, Clinton said "Saddam is gone and good riddance" and Bush shouldn't be criticized "for trying to act" on the belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

•In May 2003 at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., he said that "I supported the president when he asked the Congress for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

The hubbub comes as polls show Hillary Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama neck and neck in the race to win Iowa's leadoff nomination contest. They were tied at 29% in a Strategic Vision poll of Iowa Democrats released today. University of Iowa political scientist Peverill Squire said Clinton's remark may revive concern about his wife's vote to authorize war. "It's undoubtedly a distraction," he said. Obama gave a strong anti-war speech in late 2002, while he was a state legislator. Asked Tuesday about Clinton saying he opposed the war from the start, Obama laughed and said: "If he did, I don't think most of us heard about it."

By: Mike Allen and Carrie Budoff Brown
November 26, 2007 12:46 PM EST DES MOINES

In a reversal of fortune, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is barnstorming Iowa with a front-runner’s swagger while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) scrambles like an underdog. In ways big and small over the weekend, the two campaigns exuded a sense of switched identities — a dynamic driven by poll-driven perceptions that Clinton’s sense of inevitability is slipping and Obama is riding a bit of a wave amid the Midwestern seas of grain. The mood and stump styles of the two campaigns reflect this new reality: An ebullient Obama — coatless, tieless, tireless — conveys a sense that at least he thinks he could be on his way to being the next president. Clinton, mixing her traditional caution with a new toughness, is clearly set on knocking Obama off his game.

For full text: go to The Politico.

Bureau of Workplace Interruptions is a time-stealing agency who work with employees to interrupt the flow of their workday. The purpose is to invigorate some of the time people spend at work in order to create new experiences and possibilities outside the flow of capital.

So, if you're an employee who needs a break from the daily routines you can apply for an interruption at the bureau's website. Subsequently, they will do their best to find the right interruption for you.

When planning the event, they'll take your occupation, work hours, and the means by which they can contact you into consideration. The interruption can take place via mail, email, telephone or, if you're lucky, a workplace visit.

For more about this project:  Bureau of Workplace Interruptions

Location of Recording:  Union Square Subway Station (Nov. 21, 2007)

From Nicola's bio: Over the last few years and 2 LPs, Nicola and her band have racked up an impressive list of rock credentials: she’s been featured on ABC World News’ “Music Under New York,â€? vh1.com, “Women Who Rockâ€? magazine, and NBC News; she’s been a National Songwriters Hall of Fame featured songwriter; she performed at David Blaine’s “Drowned Alive;â€? and she’s been heard on FM radio in a number of markets in addition to a recent mini-feature on MTV’s Music Video Awards. Her Chicks with Guitars college tour was a major success, and her myspace profile has over 127,000 hits. She and the band have been Spotlight Artists on Sonicbids, and you may have seen them featured on an ABC TV special as well as in Billboard Magazine’s “Underground LPâ€? section for Breaking Artists.

Nicola's latest album, “Don’t Take it Personally,� finds her and her band at the top of their game. From the vicious attack of “My Name Ain’t Mary� to the relatively introspective “Almost,� to the thrill ride of “(5, 6, 7, 8) Hot Date,� Nicola is in complete control. There’s enough fiery, fun-loving, fiercely independent attitude to blow your speakers off the wall. Her passionate, extroverted, fantastically versatile voice is the ultimate instrument for her unapologetic personality and irreverent wit.

This is a series of images in QuickTime movie format of President John F. Kennedy's motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963 and of the events following his assassination.  The images are accompanied by the U.S. Army Band playing "From Sea to Shining Sea," which is also on the soundtrack from the Oliver Stone film JFK.  To view the QuickTime movie, click on the Pod icon beside the post title or on the direct download link at the bottom of the post. 

In today's New York Times Op-Ed piece,"J.F.K.'s Death Re-Framed,"  Max Holland and Johann Rush offer a different perspective on the timing of Oswald's alleged shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.  They point out that the Zapruder film captures the Presidential motorcade only after it had turned onto Elm Street in Delay Plaza and quite possibly after the first shot - which the Warren Commission concluded had missed.  Oswald would only have had to fire two shots in the sequence of the Zapruder film - not three - making it more plausible that he acted alone. 

For a wicked interpretation of the Warren  Commission's findings, check out the late, great comedian Bill Hicks (his act is explicit).  There was actually a game designer who wrote a PC program called JFK Reloaded and offered a reward to anyone who could exactly recreate the assassination sequence. 

Concerned about my culinary skills, my father-in-law from South Carolina calls me and reads from an article in The Greenville News entitled, "How To Carve The Turkey." I'm still not so sure I'm ready to try carving a hulking bird.  Debbie and I will probably go to Sylvia's Soul Food Kitchen in Harlem on Thanksgiving.