So it is five in the morning and I'm up late watching a
tape of the Bundestag's dissolution vote last week on C-SPAN2
and learning all about the structure of the German government
from an unusually informative series of articles on Wikipedia. And geez,
DEUTSCHLAND your government is insane. Five political parties!
A parliamentarily-elected executive! A "fake president" whose
only powers are to give speeches and--oh yeah--dissolve the
government! And then there's the architecture, complete with a
this-thing! I've always harbored this bitter thought that more people would
be interested in American politics if there were a little more
surface drama... and you can't get any more dramatic than the
Gerhard Schroder telling MPs from his own party to vote against
an upcoming vote of confidence in Gerhard Schröder.
So anyway I'm a big wonk, and that's what I've been doing in
Iowa the past few months--working like a madman and in my free
time reading the paper, watching C-SPAN and hoping this 'nuclear
option' nonsense blows over and doesn't lead to the
cessation of the 109th Congress.
But I digress. I've also been eagerly awaiting the
demolition
of two of the oldest buildings in town--Knapp and Storms
Halls, the University's thirty year-old "temporary housing"
solution, are finally coming down a week from Tuesday. It
will be the most exciting thing to happen here this entire
summer, and everyone in town will either be there or
watching it from their offices. Granted, nothing else is
really happening here besides... well, nothing else is
happening here, so this is a Big Deal.
Barring that, though, I haven't had much to write about.
Oh, I guess I have a
new website
for the radio show where I will babble about hip-hop and show
off all these awesome records we get in at the radio station.
I'm no Kevvvy Kev, but... oh yeah,
BONUS PODCAST OF THE WHAT IS THIS PODCAST NONSENSE:
KZSU's The Drum, hosted by
the indefatigable Kevvvy
Kev, has been one of the best hip-hop shows on the planet
for over 20 years. Turns out that now you can
download
the show weekly from
some website that
records webcasts of the best independent and college radio
shows in the country. There is also a podcasting option,
whatever that means.
(It is also possible, if you combine the
mp3, the
playlist
thing and this handy software called
mp3DirectCut, to make
quality digital copies of all the hot new underground hip-hop
songs but you didn't hear that from me.)