As a 53-year-old suburban dad, I am, let’s say, outside of Eminem’s demographic. But his vehemently anti-Bush Mosh (lyrics here) truly shizzled my nizzle. (I’m assuming it’s good to have one’s nizzles shizzled.)

Maybe you can tell me: Are his claims of self-importance (“Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness…”, “I give sight to the blind”) as egotistical as they sound, merely evidence of the young lad’s lack of a self-esteem problem, or just part of the genre I need to accept?

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Steve Johnson, resident of NYC, recently switched his fandom from the Yankees to the Red Sox. I can’t quote from his most recent post without giving it away – it’s one sentence long – but go have a laugh.

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Canada’s equivalent of American Idol is a show that profiles individuals of great achievement in Canadian history. You then get to vote for your favorite. Currently in the lead position is Tommy Douglas, “the father of Medicare,” followed by Terry Fox who ran across Canada after losing his right leg to cancer.

Meanwhile, in America we’re trying to decide whether we’d rather watch The Swan or Who Wants to Blow Donald’s Trumpet?

O, Can-a-DA…

[Thanks, Tim Bouma, for the link.]

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I think Marc Canter’s idea is, overall, a bad one because, even though his scheme provides transparency (yay!), as I understand it, bloggers who said bad things about a client would not get their contracts renewed (boo!); “Say nice things or we’ll stop paying you” makes you less trustworthy. I’m in favor of bloggers making money from their blogs, but not if I now have to worry that their voice may have been bought. (See Stowe and Jason for more.)

And I want to set the record (= the index) straight on a personal matter. Marc quotes me from a fun lunch we had a couple of weeks ago in SF. He told me about his plan. I told him why I thought it would result in coercing bloggers into saying good things about his clients. I not only that I of course want bloggers to be able to make money blogging, but I suggested variations on his plan that I thought would put money in blogger’s pockets without making us into shills. (Primarily, I suggested paying bloggers to blog about a product on the product’s site, with full transparency, for a limited time with a non-renewable contract. Is it a good idea? I dunno, but bloggers would make money and I think wouldn’t feel coerced into being positive.)

This is a tad awkward. Marc has generously apologized for running the quote and removed the reference to me. Thanks, Marc. I have therefore removed two brief paragraphs from this blog entry. one that whined about what I thought was Marc’s mischaracterization of my opinion and another that was slightly light. I have deeply mixed feelings about editing blogs after the fact (excepting for typos, misspelling names, etc.), but I’d rather err on the side of civility.

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In order to register a Microsoft product, you must get a .NET Passport. There are no alternative methods. I don’t want to support Passport because I’m uncomfortable with Microsoft being in the ID business — and if I’m wrong, then I’ll fall back simply on “I don’t want one because I don’t want one” — so now I don’t get the benefits of registration (whatever those might be).

Isn’t this coercive behavior? Can’t someone please sue them? Thank you.

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Michael has started a Corante blog called “Flackster.” Michael’s one of the wittier writers around, so I look forward to this chronicle of life in, among and against the PR-osphere.

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I don’t know anything about baseball — for example, are there rules about when you can use a pinch runner, or is it just random? — so pardon me if this is a naive question, but: Is this the first time that winning a World Series would make a team normal?

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Jay compiles a fantastic list of “What’s going on here that we don’t understand, do we, Mr. and Mrs. Jones?” He asks for help understanding what thread runs among the topics.

I left a comment, basically repeating a post from a few days ago:

Great list, and I agree with Shrinkette: Sounds like you’re gestating the blog entry we’re all waiting to read.

I think you can see one of the pivot points in Stewart’s refusing to be CrossFire’s “monkey”: The journalists want to entertain and the entertain wants to tell the truth.

The entertainer is the pivot here because I think part of the new — but transient — narrative is that “The media are the last to know”…and in particular, the last to know that they’ve lost their pompous, false claim on our trust. “The media are the last to know” is a comic trope since, obviously, they’re in the knowing business. Hence, the narrative has become comedic. Their every protestation of seriousness — from Dan Rather’s apology to Sam Donaldson’s toupee — now only makes them look more ridiculous.

Go read the list and leave Jay a comment that makes sense of it all…

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The new Personal Democracy site and blog lis off to a strong start. E.g., Cory takes the first solo with an article called “Will Congress Outlaw Your iPod?” The list of contributors looks great, starting with Micah Sifry, one of the organizers of the site.

[Note: It’s a little awkward for me to tout this site since I’m one of the contributors, but, well, take a look at it and judge for yourself. Of course.]

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The political session ended with a performance by Eloma Simpson Barnes. She gave a Martin Luther King speech that had apparently been given to a northern audience while the Voting Rights Bill was still in contention. It sounds like a dumb idea: Her voice emulate’s King’s. Her intonation is pitch perfect. It’s just weird.

…Except, it totally worked on me. I’m old enough to remember King – when I was a young teenager, I was in one of the marches on Washington – and Barnes’ performance brought it all back to me. We were so lucky to have King. Our history might have been much bloodier without him. And we lost so much when he was murdered.

That voice. It made me cry.

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