Cultural Cuisinart

Is Rolling Stone still relevant anymore? Are today's youth actually buying it and using it to guide their musical choices? I'm not sure. There are several mainstream mags that offer similiar features and it's been awhile since one of their covers caused a stir. I myself prefer Blender (despite it's snickering frat boy overtones in some articles, I find their music reviews spot on).

Anyhoo, Rolling Stone has officially endorsed Barack Obama. It's an eloquent piece, capturing all the things that I personally love about Barack.
Also of note is this particular passage, explaining my decision to back Obama over Clinton:

All this was made clearer by the contrast with Hillary Clinton, a capable and personable senator who has run the kind of campaign that reminds us of what makes us so discouraged about our politics. Her campaign certainly proved her experience didn't count for much: She was a bad manager and a bad strategist who naturally and easily engaged in the politics of distraction, trivialization and personal attack. She never convinced us that her vote for the war in Iraq was anything other than a strategic political calculation that placed her presidential ambitions above the horrifying consequences of a war. Her calibrated course corrections over the past three years were painful. Like John Kerry — who also voted for the war while planning a presidential run — it helped cost her that goal.

Again, the politics of hope versus the politics of fear. I like Hillary, but this year voting for her would feel like choosing the lesser of two evils. A vote for Obama, in contrast, to me feels like a vote for the greater good. That distinction makes all the difference in the world to me.