Minneapolis earworm...

Two birds: not only is this a Minnesota band, but the video is courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio.

Minnesota rules.

6-month wordle...

I'm coming up on six months of this ridiculous blog, and I hope to do something to mark the date. For now, it's fun to see representation of my nonsense 'til now.

In a sentence, this is not quite what I was shooting for when I started.

Oop.

the amazing rando...

Will Draw Anything for $2?

ohpleaseohpleaseohplease...

For iPhone maybe?

first listen...

You can listen to the whole of her new album, Far, via NPR Music.

I love that NPR does this.

something simple, something surreal...

This goes well with the confused state of the last post.

a stumble in words...

This will not be my best post.

I have been emotionally swept up in the Iranian elections in the past few days, and have been glued to my computer since the first words of fraud were published. The reason for this seems simple: I follow blogger Andrew Sullivan regularly, and his blog is one of the first (and best) to be reporting on the events. As the awareness grows I feel a sense of satisfaction, that I have been right all along for being concerned, even though I haven't done anything. Depending on how events play out, however, I wonder if I will think back on myself at this time and cringe. Have I gone insane?

I think I know the reason, though not the answer.

Even before the election took place I felt a strange draw to the event. This was going to be huge. However narrow the field of candidates in the election, the effect of a victory or defeat for the current president of Iran was going to have a major effect on the future of the Middle East and Israel (and ramifications back home), North Korea, nuclear arms, etc. It would also affect the real and perceived effectiveness of our man Obama, and I was able to scare myself with that thought.

But these are issues of fear, and fear isn't quite what I was feeling. I'll cut to the chase with this quote from a reader of Sullivan's. This was featured in a post titled "Is It Changing America, Too?"

I am 31 years old. I cannot remember ever having a discussion about "Iran" at work. I cannot remember ever having a discussion about "Iran" with my wife or members of my family. Unless it was about their nuclear weapons program, or their involvement in Iraq, I cannot remember ever having a conversation about "Iran" with any of my friends.

Today, people at work are sharing photos, many of them are those found on the links you have provided. People are speaking about "Iran", not as an enemy - but as a people who has had their freedom taken from them. I don't know how this will resolve, but those protesters need to know they are not alone.

It's the people. In the days leading up to the election, we were actually seeing pictures, videos and stories from the Iranian people themselves- not just Ahmadinejad. What's more, we were seeing hopeful, positive people. There was a huge movement towards modernization, openness and youth. For me, the sense was very similar to the emotion of Obama's campaign.

"Bomb, bomb Iran?"

I had heard many times that Iran is a complicated country, a country with deep divisions, but this is the first evidence I personally had seen. Why hadn't I seen this before?

It's like you're a kid, and you've realized there's another kid across the street that you could be friends with if your parents weren't constantly fighting. You can't be sure that you'd get along, really, but you know that they're not as horrible as your parents make them sound. The analogy breaks down from here, because parents are re-elected every four years...



Now they're working their asses off protesting peacefully and avoiding violent retaliation, and those who can help are doing so with Twitter and other technology. There's debate about how best we help them, but there's no debate that about whether we help them at all. Help the people. No question.

This a bad post because none of it is new. None of it should feel new, either, but there's a sense of new that I can't avoid. In the end I didn't have any change of heart, just a unexpected sense of awareness for the heart I might have.

I just wanted to write about that.

before the shooting...

...there was a protest.

Rumor has it that Obama will speak tonight about the events in Iran.

To see more, try Daily Dish (some website issues, but keep trying), Huffington Post, and now CNN (which has picked up their feet in the last day).

More photos via The Big Picture.

OMG.

Have you been following the Iranian election?

Seriously. This needs to be on your radar. I've been following the excellent work of Andrew Sullivan in slogging through the reports as they come in.

And with the Ayatollah throwing the full weight of religion behind the results, this struggle may be more than political.

earwig shoutout...

I've been wanting to tell everyone I know to check out The Drought, a Milwaukee band featuring my good friend/former roommate/former bandmate/blog commentator John. But since the tracks they had posted on MySpace were (admittedly) rough cuts, I was afraid about jumping the gun and sabotaging it all.

Well I'm pretty sure they've just posted some much-improved remixes, so here they are. It's all relatively homegrown, but I think it sounds great and encourage everyone to check it out.

I'm not actually sure of the significance of the bear...I just followed their lead.