Over the past week or two, John McCain's campaign has helped make the word "Arab" a pejorative, and Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, into a synonym for "terrorist." Whether it's from McCain's lips or his scary campaign mouthpieces, it doesn't matter much: he's simply not doing enough to...

Things that have dropped off the radar since the RNC:

1. "Barack Obama is Just a Community Organizer" (due to counter-point: "So was Jesus")
2. Possibly John McCain (see: Obama debates... Obama?)
3. Any coverage of the police brutality against journalists and protesters who were raided, some arrested...

Did McCain's speech sound like the same, tired, Bush rhetoric? Well, that's because it is.

Confused as to how "change" for McCain means...voting in another Republican? Me too.

In this theme, I propose a game I like to call, "Who Said What at What Convention?" There are only three possible...

Much has happened since John Lennon recorded "Give Peace a Chance" 39 years ago with new bride Yoko Ono in a Montreal Hotel Room, during their "Bed in For Peace." Presidents have come and gone, wars lost and won, and no one's talkin'...

As you may have noticed from my blogs, I'm a huge believer in the power of music to motivate change, both social, political and personal. Which is why when I heard that my friends over at Merge Records were throwing a benefit concert for one of their former interns...

Dear The Nation:

First off, let me take the chance to congratulate you on your constant struggle to bring to light progressive issues and ideas rarely touched upon in the mainstream media. Thank you for your honest coverage on the Iraq war, for uncovering the Double Life of James...

I think it was Hamlet that said "for murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ: the record player."

Perhaps that wasn't the exact quote. But one thing is true: the CD is finally dying its much-awaited death, and it wasn't the MP3 that killed...

Ok, so maybe I haven't. But Katy Perry didn't either, and she's still singing about it. Go figure.

Setting: afternoon on a Thursday. Hollywood , California. A teal couch, a window looking up to Runyon Canyon, a girl, a coffee. And TRL.

"I want my MTV," I thought to...

Fleet Foxes' Robin Pecknold at LA's The Echo

If one thing hasn't changed about Sub Pop in the last 20 years, it's the flannel. Cliché, I know, but I as I stood watching last Saturday what was probably one of the...

Conor Oberst

For a good while, music and politics was all about Bill and that saxophone.

Years after the Vietnam War uprising, after Dusty Springfield, "Blowin' in the Wind" and Marvin Gaye, after the time when dissent was a fertile chorus,...

I'm starting to think that I'm a bad luck charm. In my almost ten years as a voting citizen, I think I've replaced the rabbit's foot on the key chains of republicans across the country. There's a little plastic me, long brown hair and all, currently clinging to Karl Rove's...

A little over seven months ago, I moved from New York City, my lifelong home and utter sense of identity, to Los Angeles. Yes, I went willingly into that dark night--I needed a change of scenery, my skin was starting to turn into an inverse form of white that happens...