We’ve got a new “Think Again” column here called, “FCC, Meet ‘Change'”and a new Nation column called “Save the News, not the Newspaper,” here.

This just in: Brilliant guy compares Alterman on Bruce to Casablanca!

And damn if he doesn’t have a point, (IONSHO).

On the other hand, this morning we are freshly reminded of the greatJohn Stuart Mill’s observation that “I never meant to say that theConservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid peopleare generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously anduniversally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman willdeny it,” when I see something like this.

Sorry boys, most of these movies suck (Red Dawn? really?) And the ones that don’t aren’t conservative. Not getting an abortion does not a conservative make, idiots. Juno is a movie about family love, withliberal attitudes. And Groundhog Day? God I am tired of their motherfucking shit

Alter-reviews: Miles and Coltrane Tribute at Jazz @LC:

I went to the 50th anniversary celebration of Kind of Blue and GiantSteps last night at Jazz at Lincoln Center. We reviewed the two-CDKind Of Blue: Legacy Edition with studio sequences, false starts, andalternate takes from 1958-59 sessions, plus seventeen-minute “So What” (live inHolland, 1960) a little while back. If any musical composition holds upafter fifty years, this is it. J@LC did something daring with it last night, however; they invited the vocal group Take Six to perform theentire album. Sometimes it worked. “So What” was a revelation. Much ofthe rest of it was not. A noble experiment, to be sure, but it wouldhave worked better, me thinks, if they had only done say, two of thetracks, and then thrown in their terrific “Seven Steps to Heaven” as anencore.

Much more successful from where I sat was the performance of GiantSteps, an album that lacks KOB’s iconic status–which, thanks in largemeasure to Ashley Kahn, belongs to A Love Supreme instead, perhapsdeservedly so, but is really pretty damn great. The band was fronted byMatthew Mulgrew and featured Ted Nash, and was joined by the greatdrummer Jimmy Cobb, who is the only living member of the Davis ensembleon KOB. He sounded just fine on the four or five tracks upon which heplayed.

Anyway, whenever I hear music at Rose Hall I wonder about the distancefrom which jazz was created and the setting in which it’s being played.Last night it felt just fine. This is our classical music now, but thespirit of music lies in improvisation and so it lives in a way that forme, classical music does not. (I know, I know, my fault, not Mozart’s.)The show was mc’d by “Bunk” from the Wire. Believe it or not, the dudeneeds to loosen up a bit. There are two more performances, tonight andtomorrow. Check it out here.

Slacker Friday:

Name: Charles PierceHometown: Newton, MA

“Hello, Mr. Soul/I dropped by to pick up a reason.”

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “Fallin’ Off The Floor” (Stanton Moore)–So there I am at Ben and Sally’s, lingering over the crudites–which included Bill O’Reilly–and Matthews comes weaving up and yelling, “Hey Ho! Let’s go!” And I tell him, no, I’m waiting on the staff of The Politico (!) to leak to them the details of how much I love New Orleans.

Short Takes:

Part The First: Maybe this poll doesn’t surprise Greenwald, or Jane Mayer, or anyone else who’s been doing the heavy lifting on these issues for the past several years, but it knocked me cynicism-over-teakettle. People pushing for this have got to point out relentlessly that they are on the popular side of the issue. It may not get them into The Politico (!) , but it may get the country the truth.

Part The Second: Oh, Jeebus Christmas, they’re at it again. I swear, the Somali pirates have more respect for the international lawof the sea than conservatives have for popular culture. Let’s leave asidethe incongruities of the list–it apparently having eluded the aboveprofessor of classics that 300 is, like, the gayest movie since TopGun–and point out that these clowns are so desperately stumbling in thepursuit of being not geeks that they’ve almost completely erased thehistory of genuinely conservative movies, especially the ones madeduring the 1950’s. Where in the hell is Big Jim McLain, with John Wayne and Peter Arness–The Duke and Matt Dillon!–chasing down commie bastards in Hawaii? It’s more genuinelywingnutty than Braveheart ever was and you don’t have to watchCrazy Jesus Mel get disemboweled.

Part The Third: We have long chronicled the distressful securityproblems that regularly occur at the home offices of Salon, when WaldoThe Drunk Security guard falls asleep at his desk at night, thereby allowingcrazy people to sneak in and use the computers to post things they wouldotherwise be stapling to lamp posts up and down the Mission District.Alas, it happened again. How can we tell? Well, any sentence purporting to be aimed at higher primates that begins “One of the nuggets I’ve gleaned from several radio sources..” is proof enough. One of the nuggets that I’ve gleaned from several radio sources is that space aliens are among us. Once, I had my doubts…

Part The Fourth: I think Sheriff Gomer and Deputy Cooter want to beon the teevee with Nancy Grace a little too much.

Part The Last: So, C-Plus Augustus (Ret.) has decided to come outand do himself some speechin’.

Of course, he picked the one place in Canada with enough oilmen,cowboys, and reactionary froth beasts to make him feel comfortable. “Share histhoughts on eight momentous years in office”? I feel confident inpredicting that hilarity will ensue.

I am perfectly willing to believe that Judd Gregg got chased backinto his Senate seat by the angry-cannibal wing of his party. I amperfectly willing to believe almost anything about Republicans thesedays. The New Hampshire Republican party, in particular, is in a horrible way.Caught between the hard far right and the rapidly dwindling segment ofthe Not Insane, it has seen the state’s entire congressional delegation goDemocratic. It also confronts the reality that John Lynch, the state’senormously popular Democratic governor who appointed a Republican toreplace Gregg even though he didn’t have to do so, probably could sellManchester to Zimbabwe at this point and get re-elected. The samemorning that Gregg chucked himself out the window, these numbers regarding his Senate seat came out. Charlie Bass is a decent skin, but that’s a big gap between him and Paul Hodes. And if he and baby Sununu are neck and neck with Carol Shea-Porter, who has no money and nowhere near Hodes’svisibility, then things are worse than anyone could have imagined. I knowGregg has said he won’t run for re-election in 2010. Yes, and he wasgoing to be Secretary of Commerce, too.

On the other hand, I am not willing to believe that Gregg bailedout on principle because he couldn’t abide changes in who runs the census.This is because I am not five-years old.

Name: Fred LeonhardtHometown: Portland, OR

“Next year, let’s just invite Phil, Bob, Mickey, Billy (and whoever sits in for Jerry), and give it back to the music.”

Good idea. Let’s turn halftime into naptime.

Name: Stephen CarverHometown: Los Angeles

Dr. A. – When you’re a rocker who’s been around as long as Springsteen has, and you’ve finally decided, after twenty years of being asked, to lower yourself to the level of playing a twelve minute set of rock n’ roll in front of a bazillion people so you can sell your newest album, then you up the ham quotient. So what? Bruce is, above all, an entertainer. He was given twelve minutes to put on a show and he did it with style. It may or may not have been a style his fans liked, but he wasn’t playing for you. He was playing for new fans. All in all, he looked like he was having fun. Bruce in a stadium setting is always fun.

I’m hoping Green Day plays next year and performs “American Idiot.”

Perhaps they should invite Laurie Anderson to stretch “O, Superman” to twelve minutes. I’d pay serious money to see that. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha….

Name: Ken SeversonHometown: Lenexa, KS

I was listening to XM radio on my way home yesterday and flipped over to Hannity’s show. I then heard a procession of tin-foil hat wearing callers talk about the secret plan Obama has to change this country into a socialist or Muslim country with Hannity gleefully egging them on. Just how do we deal with this level of ignorance especially when these people are that proud of being that uninformed? Perhaps more frightening is these people are allowed to vote, procreate, and drive cars.