8 Ways to Sunday

[Getting my press credentials] meant following an intestinally-coiled set of fenced-in paths, with uniformed guards stationed every hundred feet, and mufti-clad security people betrayed by the coils plugged into an ear. (When we can embed electronics directly into our cortexes, security folks are going to sign up to become our first ‘borgs.) The Boston that birthed our liberty is not recognizable the behind the chain links fence that line every walkway. And our Boston is least visible in the disgraceful “Free Speech Zone” that, with its barbed wire and decaying metal girders, stirs racial memories in some of us in which we can hear dogs barking as a train ominously approaches.

David Weinberger for boston.com, the web site of The Boston Globe

Other takes on the FSZ:

• LA Weekly’s Joshua Bearman finds bubbly PR executives more of a threat to democracy than the Zone
• Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” has a hysterical segment on the Zone that you can view online. You’ll need the Real Player plugin, and with the site being bombarded at the moment you may only get the audio and a slideshow.

Download it: The Party Party — Dick is a Killer (3:52, MP3/192kbps/5.31 MB) Unfortunately, I’ve had to take down this song due to the heavy toll it was taking on my bandwidth allowance (7.3 GB in March 2005 alone). You can still find the song on the Party Party web site or the artist’s AudioStreet page.

I believe that god made me a woman.
I feel it in my heart,
And this bitch’s voice must be heard.
A sex change is the only certain way
To preserve the sanctity of marriage.
We are living in historic times.
We are living in a time of great change.
Our leadership and resolve
Can light the way for others.
And having come this far,
And in the unfolding of the years,
This country has a new friend
Called Shirley W. Bush.

…

May God continue to bless America.
Word.

from The Party Party — Dick is a Killer (lyrics)

Believe it or not, those words all come from the mouth of President George W. Bush. Sampled and remixed over a loopy techno dance track into a tale of homoerotic obsession, war and corruption, they form the foundation of what may be the most hilarious political parody song of recent times. (more…)