Friday Funday: Not Horsemeat Yet

In a week that's seen the deaths of legendary rock n' roll presenter Dick Clark, and legendary rock and roll singer Levon Helm, it seems fitting that tomorrow, Saturday April 21, is International Record Store Day - a real actual holiday, of sorts.

If you've never heard of it before, that may be because International Record Store Day began just five years ago, partially as a grassroots stunt, and partially as as a celebration of small, independent music resellers around the world.

Like cartoons and comic stores, the record store industry has been devastated by the advent and growth of the internet. Digital technologies - like smartphones, music players, and tablet computers - that have come with the growth of the internet have often turned musicians, cartoonists, writers, and photographers into people that major companies, and even our neighbors, tend to think of as "free content generators" - an offensive euphemism most often used by those who want to get our work for free, and sell it for a profit.

Thankfully, much as cartooning is finding new respect online - in part, due to the success of mostly-online cartoonists like Matt Wuerker, who, this week, won a Pulitzer Prize for his work with Politico - the old-fashioned, local, brick-and-mortar music stores are also beginning to find their place in the commercial hierarchy again.

Part of that success may also be because an estimated sixty-five percent of the music buying public continues to buy physical versions of the music they love.

For audiophiles and lovers of vinyl - like our staff member Shawn, who has worked in radio professionally for almost twenty years - International Record Store Day is a day filled with rare releases, and usually some pretty incredible deals, to boot.

For retailers who sell music - even those in the big box stores - Saturday will be more like Christmas, as International Record Store Day, after just five years, is considered one of the highest profit days for retailers of any physical music products. In 2011, according to Billboard magazine, sales of physical music saw a massive spike that retailers attributed almost completely to International Record Store Day,

It's also now considered one of the best and most successful grassroots-based marketing ideas in recent history - and it may indeed be the single biggest force helping to keep the record store industry alive.

There will be hundreds of bands with special releases on CD and vinyl this Saturday, and bands will be performing at local record stores all over the world. The coordinators of International Record Store Day even have their own website, where you can check out where the closest local record store is to you.

International Record Store Day is more than just a way to celebrate physical music. It's a way to celebrate a whole part of our collective human culture: the acquiring and trading of art in a physical form, with other people - something we support wholeheartedly.

We realize, accept, and even enjoy certain facets of modern technology in music that allow us to listen to and even purchase a copy of almost any song sold, from almost anywhere human beings go. Still, with the end of so many things flashing by all of us these days - including the horseracing industry in Nebraska - International Record Store Day is another sign, like Matt Wuerker's Pulitzer Prize, that while some things may change, we're not the only ones who still respect and even enjoy art, in a good, solid, physical form.

If you're looking for us this weekend, you'll likely find our staff members at one of our local music stores, supporting people just like us - artists, who know the value of something real.

Searching For An Anchor

It's an old axiom in American Presidential politics that the most important decision any President can make is who his or her Vice President will be. With the 2012 Election, that axiom is just as true as it's ever been, for either major candidate - though we certainly don't envy the task of Mitt Romney and his advisors.

For President Obama, the choice is easy, for a whole host of reasons. For one thing, current Vice President Joe Biden has a long history in the U.S. Senate - thirty-six years as a Senator - which gives him and the President some leverage in Congress they might not otherwise have. It also gives President Obama a sort of institutional memory of Washington, DC, which may explain why some politicians act so oddly at times. Their actions may simply be because of perceived slights or actions that Mr. Biden may have observed from many years ago, back when Barry Obama was in college for a bachelors degree.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is facing a staggering array of choices - and he's almost certain to disappoint some voters.

That's part of why non-incumbent presidential candidates like Mr. Romney, traditionally do what Mitt did recently, when he chose his longtime advisor Beth Meyers to head up his vice presidential search committee. Meyers has been an advisor to Romney for years, and acted as his Chief of Staff back when Mitt was governor of Massachusetts, so she may have as good a feeling as anyone about what kind of person might help compliment Romney's strengths and weaknesses.

One thing we don't advise Ms. Meyers to do is look to the media for help on who might make a good vice presidential pick. Nearly every media pundit and media organization seems to have their own idea of a good vice presidential choice for Mr. Romney.

From so-called "star" picks, like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and freshman Florida Senator Marco Rubio, to former Bush director of Office of Managment and Budget - and current Indiana Governor - Mitch Daniels, the names that members of the media keep throwing out there continue to pile up.

Some political handicappers look to potential candidates like Congressman Paul Ryan or former Florida governor Jeb Bush, as choices that might help pull a swing state into the win column for Romney in November.

Other possible choices like New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, or former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are seen as ways to hypothetically swing more of the minority vote towards Mitt - though we highly doubt either choice could swing enough votes, or would satisfy the Republican base of Mr. Romney's party.

Of course, as Matt Negrin of ABC News noted on Wednesday, the political ghost of Sarah Palin haunts any choice that Mr. Romney might make, much as the references to the Titanic have haunted the media throughout this month, on the hundredth anniversary of its sinking.

We don't suggest Mr. Romney & Ms. Meyers look to the members of the Republican Party for help on this either. The latest polling confirms Republicans are almost as divided on who they'd like to see Mr. Romney pick for VP, as the GOP base has been about who they've wanted for their Presidential pick.

If we were to give Mitt Romney any guidance at all on this issue, the best advice we could give is to choose the person that he'd pick for President if Mr. Romney knew he were dying of some horrible disease.

That person, man or woman, who is organized enough, disciplined enough, trustworthy enough, knowledgeable, wise, smart - and hopefully, somewhat humble - would be the person we'd recommend he pick.

Of course, if the GOP could find someone like that, who both the Republican Party base would vote for, along with the rest of the country, we doubt Mr. Romney would be the Republican Party's current presumptive nominee.

Picking Your Battles

While there are a pile of partially reported news items taking up the media landscape right now, we wanted to point out today two major issues: one that isn't being talked about but should be, and one that will likely a get lot of attention - and really shouldn't.

The news item you're not hearing a lot about, from any media outlet (except maybe this one), is the growing level and type of issues from veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

In the links we provide with our daily e-mail edition, we regularly point out both positive news and negative news about what our vets are facing when they come home and leave military service - like the unemployment stats for recent vets. The sad fact is, no one really knows if the most recent dip in unemployment for veterans is a trend or a data mistake, because we haven't had enough months of real data to make that call.  Either way, that rate is far higher than we think it should be.

The last thing our service members need from Americans who haven't recently served - or who never served - is to have to fight, when they get home, to get the benefits those servicemebers earned by doing the dirty business of our nation. Yet we keep seeing stories of Iraq and Afghanistan vets whose disability claims have been buried under a mountain of paperwork, or who've been looking for a job for several years now and still can't find one. If you're looking for stories of how badly America is failing its recent veterans - in both the public and private spheres - you won't have to look far.

It's not as though we didn't know these service members were coming home. Yet, we haven't prepared for their homecoming needs, as a nation - a fact that will be hitting us like a blast from outer space, very soon. But we doubt there will be any major media coverage of this sad fact - or any major movement from any political party to fix this issue.

What you will find a great deal of coverage of, over the next few months, are the exploits of a rich white man, that few people trust, trying to bully the current President of the United States, and anyone else that gets in his way - namely, Mitt Romney.

What else would you call a man who just a few years ago bragged about being a progressive-minded Republican, but on Tuesday pandered to an extremist right-wing media group, claiming there's now a 'vast left wing conspiracy' aligned against him?

This is the same man who actively went after the endorsement of right-wing extremist rock star Ted Nugent - but now that Nugent has threatened death if President Obama wins again in November, Romney is disavowing any connection with the extremist rocker, hunter, and commentator. Nugent isn't the only conservative figure on the right Romney is throwing under the bus, now that his path to the Republican nomination seems clear.

Kansas Secretary of State and well-known anti-immigration activist, Kris Kobach, has been a major advisor to Mitt Romney on his immigration policies. Yet, now that Romney is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, the Romney campaign has tossed Kobach under the metaphorical campaign bus, in an obvious attempt to pivot back towards the political center.

On top of all this, now Romney's campaign has said that they are going to be literally following President Obama around, trying to get in his face, like a rich-boy bully, every day, for the foreseeable future. Romney could simply request a debate, or go around the country promoting his own best qualities. Instead, Romney will be chasing after Obama in real life, just as he is in many polls.

Mitt Romney's history of being on all sides of every issue - being as untrustworthy as the worst smarmy used car salesman you can imagine - is well known, and really shouldn't be in the news on a daily basis. It surprises us how any Republican who values honesty can even support Romney, knowing his history. Yet, Mitt will be the GOP nominee for president this year, whether Republicans like it or not, as we noted nearly a year ago.

Now, both of these stories - the needs of our veterans and Mitt Romney's increasingly untrustworthy actions - are important.

But we all know which one we Americans should truly be focusing our energies upon - and which one will be receiving more media attention over the next year.