What was the origin of rock and roll? Scholars (and by scholars I mean stoner music majors) have debated it for centuries, at least as far back as 1750, when Methius Palmer observed: "The backbeat in the Negro jump music causes one's body to rock, but the rhythm in the Negro spiritual causes one's body to roll. This, say I, is the original 'rock and roll' and not, as some have claimed, the polka." Indeed. But what exactly was the origin of rock and roll?

F

2009.05.03 — Government | Politics | by Derek Jensen

Barack Obama gets an A- for his first 100 days as president on pretty much every issue. His cabinet appointments have been clumsy, and his handling of the stimulus package unnecessarily watered down good economics with bad to satisfy Republicans who then voted against it anyway. But for the most part, he has done an excellent job of rehabilitatiing the United States on the world stage and handling the break down of the economy. The test he has failed was on the subject of torture.

“Mack the Knife” and 5 other famous songs completely different from the originals

2009.04.29 — Entertainment | Music | by Andrew Cole

It takes guts to find a song you like and change it to make it your own. And it takes brains and a real feel for music to find a song you don't like and realize it has potential if it were done differently. "Mack the Knife" is one of the great songs recycled from lesser songs. These aren't covers, tho—they're rearrangements and extreme rearrangements at that. A cover just remakes the song with the same arrangement and different vocalist and/or instrumentation. A rearrangement fundamentally changes the song's rhythm, tempo, chord structure, and/or lyrics.

Can clean energy compete?

2009.04.22 — Business | Energy | by Derek Jensen

I've been reading a lot lately about alternative energy, and I find that some people have a bizarre view of it. They think that clean energy technology should have to compete with traditional energy in the free market. They decry subsidies, variability, and higher prices because those things are anti-competitive. That's wrong-headed, and here's why.

Panthers, and 5 other real animals that don’t exist

2009.03.31— Culture | Language | by Roland Grant

It isn't just mythical animals that have difficulty being properly identified. Some perfectly ordinary animals you might pass everyday on your way to work might just not exist. It's easy to imagine one group of people giving an animal a good name and another group of people hundreds or thousands of miles away encountering the very same animal and accidentally giving it a different name. Conveniently, these sorts of mistakes are cleared up by scientists who give the animal an entirely different name in a dead language.

Changing the game of electric vehicles

2009.03.23 — Business | Cars | by Derek Jensen

There is a revolution afoot for electric vehicles. Check that. There is a revolution afoot for passenger vehicles. If the technology plays out as it promises to over the next few years, there will be a paradigm shift in the automotive world not seen since the invention of the electric starter motor. How fitting, actually.

Unicorns, and 5 other mythical animals that really exist

2009.03.17 — Culture | Language | by Roland Grant

Being a Medieval zoologist was tough, and documenting exotic animals from far-off lands was particularly difficult given the limited availability of freezers and photographs at the time. Most such information came north from the Mediterranean, generally from Rome and often ultimately from Greece and Egypt.

Good tales grow taller as they travel, and tales of great African animals grew and morphed as they went to northern Europe. And Europeans had no problem making up animals altogether, usually from parts of other animals. But some of those mythical animals were real, albeit in ways that Medieval readers would not have recognized.

Hamlet in brief

2009.02.17 — Culture | Language | by Roland Grant

While watching a movie adaptation of Hamlet (I won't muddy the waters with which version), it occurred to me that a lot of the play is just words, words, words. If there weren't so much talking, it would be a lot simpler—so simple, I suspect, that sixth graders could put it on. Brevity being the soul of wit, as I always say, what follows is Hamlet in brief.

Audio commentary: Help!

2009.01.07 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

My 5-year-old niece and I lend a helping hand to the Beatles in their second film, the full-color presentation of Help! Ringo becomes the target of an Indian (dots, not feathers) cult of Kali (or Kah-ili, as they say), probably still smarting from the drubbing they took from Indiana Jones thirty years before. I identify some of the cars (and tanks), and explain some of the background surrounding filming, such as how the Beatles were so stoned they didn't know what the movie was about, how much a curling stone weighs, and how dumb it is to shoot outdoors in England in March. Keely explains some of the plot, sings along a little, and identifies which Beatles are cute. A good time was had by all.

Audio commentary: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2009.01.03 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Analysis | by Andrew Cole

The Coen Brothers succeed in creating an almost magical pastiche of 1930s crime and ancient Greek epic and even make it funny, with George Clooney as the fast-talking leader of a gang of escaped convicts crossing Depression-era Mississippi to get home and ending up in a number of tight spots. I manage to avoid singing along by jabbering incessantly. I compare the story to the Homeric epic on which it is (very loosely) based as well as to Sullivan's Travels, where it gets its name. And I explain various 1930s customs, manners, cars, and secret organizations whose name I need not mention.

President Barack Obama

2008.11.07 — Government | Politics | by Derek Jensen

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency means a lot to this country and to the world. It means that we can begin getting some respect back in the international community. It means we can open new dialogs with both allies and enemies. It means our government will stop ordering scientific reports altered to fit their world view. It will stop casually spying on our own citizens. It will stop torturing suspects and sending suspects to foreign countries to be tortured. It means our government will find a way out of Iraq.

The origin of rock and roll

F