Summer Lovin'

Amidst classes, work and my intermittent blogging, I set a goal to record some music this summer.

I have probably made similar goals before--which I did not fulfill. Meh.

Really, regardless of whether I end up recording some of my electronic noodlings, I wanted to give a tour of my recording studio: the kitchen and laundry room of my two-bedroom apartment. The tour is replete with pictures of the amp, the three mics that I bought at Guitar Center 8 years ago on one of their weekly "SALE of the Year," and the used mixing board.




















Don't you like the axe at the foot of the oven?





There you see the devastating combo of the mixing board and PC on the kitchen table. The laundry room provides a convenient showcase for the 30 Watt's second channel.

If you guys are good to me, maybe I will go through the spoken word and self-improvement records I am scouring for the hot sample of this summer.

Why Religious Conservatives Should Like Elena Kagan

Although Solicitor General Elena Kagan's Senate Confirmation Hearings do not begin for another couple of weeks. The fellows at the Volokh Conspiracy have dug up an interesting memo she wrote in her days in the Clinton White House.

A California landlord had refused to rent to a homosexual citing religious beliefs. The California Court, applying a state nondiscrimination law, said that the Constitution did not provide a religious exception in this instance to the nondiscrimination law. Kagan's memo lambasts the Court's position that the landlord could always be employed in other manners (after she sold the houses!)

Much has been debated about the significance of the conservative professors hired by Harvard Law School during Kagan's tenure as dean. The consensus seems to be that Kagan, although an unabashed liberal, has sympathy for and a willingness to listen to conservative views. How much the sympathy and open ear will translate into conservative votes is uncertain, but this memo is evidence that it may mean more than we think.

Things that make me feel like a dork #47: Allergies

There is nothing that make me feel like more of a dork than having to constantly rub my nose and sneeze.

Sometimes I think that I can pull of being moderately cool, but the rubbing the nose squashes any success during allergy season. Am I alone in feeling the sting of an allergic assault on my hep?