This Salon article on dominionist Christians is terrifying. Definitely worth a click-through of the ads.

Speaking to outsiders, most Christian nationalists say they're simply responding to anti-Christian persecution. They say that secularism is itself a religion, one unfairly imposed on them. They say they're the victims in the culture wars. But Christian nationalist ideologues don't want equality, they want dominance. In his book "The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action," George Grant, former executive director of D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, wrote:

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less...

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ."

Scary!

My heart goes out to the family & friends of Grant McLennan, underappreciated genius and Go-Between. He was way too fucking young to die.

From the Go-Betweens site:

On Saturday 6th May, legendary Australian singer songwriter Grant W McLennan died in his sleep at his home in Brisbane. McLennan was one of Australia’s greatest songwriters who created an outstanding musical legacy as a founder member of The Go-Betweens and as a solo artist. He was enjoying enormous acclaim for the band’s most recent album Oceans Apart, which has received five star reviews around the world and won had a prestigious ARIA award.

McLennan was born in Rockhampton, Queensland on 12th February 1958. While attending university in Brisbane he met fellow student Robert Forster and together they formed The Go-Betweens. After releasing a string of singles the band recorded their debut album, Send Me A Lullaby, in 1981. The Go-Betweens recorded a series of exceptional albums that achieved widespread critical acclaim and were fundamental in bringing Australian music to a global audience. He was an unparalleled lyricist and a prolific and meticulous composer. His auto-biographical masterpiece ‘Cattle and Cane’ was recently voted by the Australian Performing Rights Association as one of the ten greatest Australian songs of all time.

In 1989 The Go-Betweens took a ten year sabbatical and McLennan recorded four powerful solo albums including the vivacious debut Watershed and the epic Horsebreaker Star as well as forming satellite groups like Jack Frost with Steve Kilbey of The Church and The Far Out Corporation with Ian Haug of Powderfinger.
When Robert Forster and Grant McLennan reformed The Go-Betweens in 2000, the band was greeted with adulation by a new generation of musicians like Belle and Sebastian, for whom their songs had been an inspirational teenage soundtrack. The three albums the band subsequently released were universally acknowledged as containing some of McLennan’s greatest compositions.

McLennan was a passionate supporter of the arts, extremely well-read and maintained a keen interest in all contemporary music, cinema and visual art. He was an exceptionally charming and polite man who endeared himself to everyone who met him and was one of the rare individuals worthy of the epithet ‘larger than life’.
His singular contribution to music and his commitment to his craft simply cannot be overstated. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him. He is survived by his mother, sister, brother, girlfriend Emma, bandmates Adele Pickvance and Glenn Thompson and lifetime musical colleague and friend Robert Forster.

Bernard MacMahon, Lo-Max Records, 6th
May 2006

Unexpected but wonderful! It's finally here! The new High Hat, only 14 years after we ceased being relevant to anyone!

(Strangely enough, the following graphic appears to be unfixable. Apologies for the offense to your eye.)

Flyer for next Wednesday's show at the Chain Drive:

RIP, John Kenneth Galbraith, the greatest economist of the 20th century. Scratch that. He was the greatest economist of the contemporary world.

Salon has a nice eulogy from his biographer (you'll have to click through ads on that link, but it's worth it).

He also believed that the real audience for a deeper understanding of power was the public and its leaders, not just colleagues behind ivy walls. He argued with professional colleagues because he thought the trend to mathematicize economics led too easily to obscurantism and irrelevance. Economies weren't governed by "natural laws," like gravity or the speed of light in nature itself, but by social conventions, habits, customs, laws and fears. Human beings weren't thus "rational maximizers of their self-interest" but as often frail as they were strong, and highly susceptible to the influence of leaders of all kinds, simply because as Aristotle had long ago noted, humans were zoon politikon, social beings.

The idea that "markets" were somehow best left ungoverned by governments was on the face of it unimaginable to Galbraith. The term "markets" itself merely described the simple daily exchanges of all human life, back to the Neolithic. We lived specifically in one type of market, in modern capitalist economies, and moreover in a special stage therein. The 19th century had been the age of "production capitalism," when human beings had moved (or been moved) off the land and into cities, from farm work to factory work. The result had been the design, building and operation of what William Blake first called "satanic mills" but that grew into factories and companies of all kinds. Here, Galbraith said, was merely the first stage of capitalism. The second dawned with the 20th century, the era of "consumer capitalism" in its early form, when fully productive capitalism now had to figure out how to sell what it made. Advertising, branding, easy credit and the cultivation of status goods and insecurity that consumers weren't partaking in the latest fashion were its hallmarks.

I'm sure this is everywhere today, but good lord is it sweet to see Colbert in action in front of George W. himself.

Part I:


Part II:


Part III:

The show last night went well. We played ok despite some technical difficulties, and the other bands - Sally Crewe & the Sudden Moves and The Distant Seconds - rocked the house.

Also, check this out.

Q: Thursday at the Carousel? Really?

A: By "Thursday," you mean this Thursday, April 27, 2006. Parks & Wildlife are playing with The Distant Seconds and Sally Crewe, no less.

Q: Wow! Where is this fabulous Carousel Lounge? And what time does the music start?

A: The fabulous Carousel Lounge is located at 1110 52nd Street in Austin. Parks & Wildlife are playing around 9, Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves around 10, and the Distant Seconds around 11.

Q: You seem to be prevaricating about the estimated time of rockage.

A: Was that a question?

Q: Actually, it was a statement intended to provoke a response. A conversational gambit, if you will. But now the tables are turned! You are the questioner while I am the answerer! Ha!

A: Our official response to that is "Whatev, dude."

Q: I'd like to switch letters. Seriously. It sucks being a "Q." People stare in the supermarket.

A: Ummmmmmmmmm, wellllllll... Hm. No.

Q: You still didn't clarify about the start times on Thursday.

A: I have already answered the question. We will not comment about an investigation that is ongoing. We'll be happy to explain about the start times when the investigation is over, and we promise that anyone found tampering with these start times will lose their job. However, in no way should this be interpreted to mean that we are actually promising that anyone actually found tampering with the actual start times will lose his or her actual job. Next question, please. I think Sumil had one.

Q: Why did these guys hire you to promote their show, anyway?

A: This press conference is over.

Q: Fuck you, McClellan.