Like many others, I went to Washington D.C. last week for the Stewart/Colbert rally. It’s late and the news covered the actual rally, but here are a few things I’d like to add:

• Yusef/Cat Stevens is awesome.  Listen to The Wind on repeat.
• The crowd was surprisingly civil, much older than I expected, and very friendly.  I don’t think this crowd was all that different from most other political rallies, but I thought I’d mention it.  Oh, and Reddit was very well represented.
• Reason.tv (and many others) went around interviewing people at the rally, with hilariously bad results.  Not surprising — a lot of the people they interviewed were 1) young and 2) stupid.  Turns out every political rally attracts people who don’t know what they’re talking about.  Who would’ve thought?  I’ve long advocated (to Brandon, who I assume uses his writer-powers to get all of my messages out to the masses) that both sides stop “Jaywalking” political events and admit that there are ideas on both sides that have support in both history and policy.  By failing to seek out those people and air their views we harm the marketplace of ideas, don’t understand our opponents, and perpetuate partisan bickering.  Not every Tea Party supporter is a racist bigot, and not every leftist is a druggie moron.  Some are, but let’s agree to ignore them for the greater good, okay?  Kthx.
• I thought Stewart’s speech at the end was great.  He’s said a lot of that stuff before, but it was nice to hear it all in one place.  I hope people took it to heart and that it influences them when they think about politics in the future.  Understanding the other side is incredibly important if you want to achieve lasting change.  We need to stop demonizing each other and making fear-based, irrational arguments.  And for Christ’s sake, liberals, stop comparing President Bush to a man who murdered millions of his own citizens.

For reading this far, you get a video!

I was originally going to call this my Winter in Cambridge 2010 Playlist, but that seemed disingenuous.  I haven’t spent that much time in Cambridge, and this playlist was almost entirely created during and inspired by my trips to New York.  Ideally I would have everyone listen to this playlist while walking through NYC on a cold night, but I understand that’s probably asking too much of my three loyal readers.

I tried to find a good mix of old and new, and I’m happy with the result.  I reserve the right to edit the playlist, however, and welcome additional suggestions/feedback in the comments!

Okay, so I’m 20 songs into my 2010 Winter Playlist. Feel free to send me suggestions. Expect a final version to come soon, probably after the D.C. rallies next week.

Here are some of my past playlists. There might be a little bit of overlap.

This past weekend was a busy one — I went to NYC to meet up with a bunch of high school friends (four who live there, three who were visiting), and managed to also hang out with two college friends, a UCLA friend, two work friends, and one cousin (who just moved to the city).  It was an exhausting two days, but lots of fun.  Some highlights:

• Seeing my friend Willis perform in the Broadway show In the Heights.
• Introducing Bobby to Angel’s Share — my old favorite bar in the city.
• Discovering The Jane Hotel — my new favorite bar in city.
• Randomly running into my friend Vivek in Times Square, even though neither of us live in New York.

Okay, here are some pictures:

So great!

Angel's Share

Washington Square Park

Pinhole ESB