In the RFT that's coming out later this week, our music writers will weigh in on what they liked -- and didn't like -- about music in the year 2008. Various writers from around the Village Voice Media chain also weighed in on their jams, lists we'll be rolling out over the next week or so. Here's a sneak preview of these, my list of top ten pop songs.BY ANNIE ZALESKIPop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that's true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussy
Igor Panarin, a Russian academic and former KGB agent, predicted ten years ago that the U.S. would self-destruct through civil war in late 2009. Now, thanks to the collapse of our economy, other people are finally starting to believe him. Most of these people are Russians, it is true, and it could be they are just bitter about that little Soviet collapse back in 1989, but Panarin claims his theory has merit. (Well, of course he does.)
"There's a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will o
I just can't envision myself, you know, the big straw hat and a Hawaiian shirt sitting on some beach. Particularly since I quit drinking.- President George W. Bush at his final press conference, 1.12.09This is the most self-aware statement our soon-to-be former president has ever uttered. Not only because he was willing to make a joke about his alcoholism. This was also the closest George W. Bush has ever come to using irony properly.He's a teetotaler, yet the last eight years have driven so ma
I've never been to the U.K. My idealized concept of British pubs was born from rich legend. Surely our drinking establishments are inferior.My friend Sally, a native Londoner, held similar stereotypes about American bars. They were either "Cheers" or like a bar from her childhood called "The Dive Bar" at the British embassy in Moscow.I'm still not entirely sure how Sally knows about bars in Cold War-era Moscow.Sally's wish list for her first visit to St. Louis had three items: go to the top of
If you've been on Twitter or Facebook or any popular social media site for any amount of time, you've probably discovered that there are some things that a lot of people do that you find very annoying -- that anyone should find very annoying. I queried my Twitter followers for the things that annoyed them the most in social media and here are some the top things they reported. 1. Claiming to be a Social Media ExpertThis seems to be a problem that's particular to Twitter, and that in itself is
