Define "Cute"

Puppy!

Hacienda - Little Girl

I love stuff like this -- a few musicians in a room, relaxed but in control, making great music.

It's worth pointing out that for all the retro music I post, Hacienda is a new band, having released their two albums in 2008 and 2010. But then, they're a little retro themselves.

Hacienda - Little Girl - HearYa Live Session from HearYa.com on Vimeo.

John Boutté - At the Foot of Canal Street

It's unfair to say that when David Mills died so unexpectedly on March 30 that he left behind unfinished work, mostly because he had accomplished so much in his time on earth. However, when I recently visited his Vox.com blog, I noticed that he had posted a song there on March 28. Usually the songs that he posted there would show up as links from posts on his main blog, undercoverblackman, but if he meant to do so for this song, as seems likely, he didn't have a chance to get to it. He's been on my mind again because I just finished watching The Corner, the 2000 HBO mini-series for which he and David Simon won Emmies as creators and writers. So to honor his memory just a little more, and to perhaps continue some of his work a little bit, here is that song that he posted. "At the Foot of Canal Street" is, as the title makes clear, a song about New Orleans, where David was working and where he died.

Lightnin' Hopkins - Goin' Down Slow

There was nobody quite like Lightnin'.

Krugman on Louisiana and the History of Environmental Politics

Certain things seem obvious but still rarely get pointed out. Fortunately there's Krugman (and a few others) to do some of the pointing.

It took futuristic technology to achieve one of the worst ecological disasters on record. Without such technology, after all, BP couldn’t have drilled the Deepwater Horizon well in the first place. Yet for those who remember their environmental history, the catastrophe in the gulf has a strangely old-fashioned feel, reminiscent of the events that led to the first Earth Day, four decades ago.

Frank Rich on Arizona and the Right-Wing Noise Machine

Mr Rich demonstrates his perspicacity once again.

If many of Arizona’s defenders and critics hold one belief in common, it’s that the new “show me your papers” law is sui generis: it’s seen as one angry border state’s response to its outsized share of America’s illegal immigration crisis. But to label this development “Arizona’s folly” trivializes its import and reach. The more you examine the law’s provisions and proponents, the more you realize that it’s the latest and (so far) most vicious battle in a far broader movement that is not just about illegal immigrants — and that is steadily increasing its annexation of one of America’s two major political parties.

Moonies Dump Rag

According to the Washington Post, the Unification Church is no longer willing to dump thirty-five million dollars a year into the conservative paper of record for the nation's capital, the Washington Times. Inside the Beltway, this may be a big deal, which means it could have long term real-world consequences for the rest of us.