Unique Profiles: Hunter S. Thompson

Another brief post for the people. This second installment in our “Unique Profiles” series focuses on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, largely accepted as the original practitioner of the “gonzo” style of journalism. Several books looking back at Thompson’s life have been released in the past year, including this one by some of his former colleagues at Rolling Stone magazine. The book leans heavily on first-person accounts from people who knew Thompson. Here’s a review of the book from the New York Times Book Review by TIME magazine writer Joel Klein, and some excerpts from, what else, Rolling Stone. Read and enjoy.

Where Dave gets his political news

As we near the first of the presidential primaries, I thought it might be helpful to share with you, dear reader, the websites from which I gather my political news. You may or may not know that I have somewhat of an interest in politics, and so it should come as no surprise that I’m a bit of a political news junkie.

I’ve found that The Politico, a publication devoted solely to political news, has, on a consistent basis, the best coverage around. It was started in January of this year to provide a new challenger to the “big boys” of political news reporting. I could describe to you the reasons why it’s so good, but I’d rather just let you read this section from their mission statement (yes, they have one, and yes, I’ve read it):

“Reading a story should be just as interesting as talking with the reporter over a sandwich or a beer. It’s a curiosity of journalism that this often isn’t true. The traditional newspaper story is written with austere, voice-of-God detachment. These newspaper conventions tend to muffle personality, humor, accumulated insight — all the things readers hunger for as they try to make sense of the news and understand what politicians are really like. Whenever we can, we’ll push against these limits. In the process, we’ll share with readers a lot more of what we know instead of leaving it in our notebooks.”

If, after reading that, you don’t understand why I love The Politico, then you may be reading the wrong blog.

All that aside, the New York Times does often have interesting feature stories on the different presidential candidates on their Politics page.

For blogs with the latest news on the presidential race, I prefer those blogs featuring writers who are on the ground in the traditional early primary states. They can provide a unique window into how a presidential campaign progresses over time. There are two in particular I would recommend. The first is the blog of Brad Warthen, the editorial page editor of The State, the main newspaper in South Carolina. The second is Cameron’s Corner, the blog of the Fox News political team, led by reporter Carl Cameron. [Please don't take this to be an endorsement of Fox News. I firmly believe that 24-hour news channels, be they Fox, CNN, or one of the many NBC offshoots, are lame. I just stumbled upon this blog one day and thought it was good.]

While we’re at it, let’s not forget presidential ads. By far the finest such ad of the 2008 race is Mike Huckabee’s ad featuring ol’ Walker, Texas Ranger himself (especially a good laugh for those of you familiar with the Chuck Norris Facts).

And finally, for the finest political commentary and analysis, I turn to the talking heads at Red State Update.

Hopefully, dear reader, these sites will satisfy your insatiable appetite for political news for the time being. If you know of any other good political sites, feel free to share. Rest assured, I’ll let you know when I find other quality political news sites that are worth your precious time.

Fans say Radiohead’s online-only album of poor sound quality, may just be marketing gimmick

I find this quite hilarious. According to this MTV News story, some Radiohead fans are peeved because they pre-ordered the band’s new album — which, in case you haven’t heard, is only available online – and then found out that it’s only available in a bit rate of 160. I don’t know much about bit rates (though Chris will hopefully explain it to me), but apparently a 160 bit rate is pretty lame, far inferior to the 320 bit rate that Radiohead allegedly distributes their other albums in, and far below CD quality (though Radiohead’s guitarist says 160 bits is still better than iTunes — I don’t know … Chris, please help!).

Some disgruntled fans are even going so far as to say this Internet-only release, in which you get to decide what you want to pay for the album — and which has been hailed as a revolutionary new approach that could shake up the music industry as we know it — wasn’t radical at all. It was just a bunch of pre-hype to get people ready for the release of the physical CD, due out next year. So it’s possible that the indie rock music intelligentsia (a long, pretentious list) just got played by one of their Lancelot bands. Priceless.

[On another note, regardless of your personal opinions about the state of MTV, have you looked at their website lately? Every time you refresh it, the background is different. The arrangement is essentially the same; only the background changes. I know, I know, they're surely not the first to do it. But still a cool idea.]