It’s a good day to dance

One of the things we like the most about global party starter/new mom MIA is her ability to (seemingly) effortless ability to flip the familiar into the brand new. Her chart-smashing song Paper Planes is a looped out sample from the Clash’s “Straight to Hell.” On “Where is my Mind?” she blows the original Pixies song out of this dimension, and throws the bassline from New Order’s “Blue Monday” on top for good measure. Sampling’s not new, but reinterpretation of the familiar takes an ear that’s willing to listen outside the familiar.

Now, you know MIA’s song “Jimmy” right? It may not be new to you, but it’s worth repeating (especially on a sunny afternoon when a little dance feels very right) that it’s a near-exact cover of “Jimmy Ajaa Ajaa” from the 1982 Bollywood film Disco Dancer.  Yes, they’re almost the same, but somehow it’s the little tweaks that make the difference. Enjoy.

Yet more insight

It seems like every couple weeks we learn something new about last November’s election turnout. It’s pretty safe to say it’s an election that will be analyzed from many different angles for years and years to come, so these reports will be a soothing constant in your life. Or something.

The latest is Pew Research study that examines the racial demographic breakdown of 2008 voters. The findings? It was the most racially diverse electorate in the history of the country. Awesome, right? Yes, certainly, but it does leave some questions unanswered.

Firstly, even at this peak, people of color made up just 23.7% of the vote, despite making up just over 25% of the national population. While that’s certainly much higher than in previous elections, it still means there are thousands of folks not coming out to the polls who could be. There’s work to be done!

And secondly, these numbers reflect overall turnout, most likely spurred by the highly-publicized presidential contest, and doesn’t track which races the voters actually participated in. One thing we’ve seen time and time again is a high drop-off rate in local elections – that is to say, if 100,000 people go vote for president, 90,000 might also vote in the next race down the ballot (say, the Governor), and only 87,000 fill out ballots for their local representatives. One of the key questions from 2008 is how high that drop-off rate was, and – more difficult – who stuck around. If the drop-off rates are higher in communities of color, then it shows just how important engagement and organizing on the state and local level really is.

It’s Today!

And by “it” we mean the deadline for the first round of PowerCorps applications!

It’s a day that lives in Famy (opposite of infamy), and goes by many names: Early-Admissions Day, Leg-Up-On-Acceptance Day and, of course, Turn-That-Bad-Boy-In Day.

Submit via electronics to info(at)washingtonbus(dot)org
Submit via the postal service to Washington Bus / P.O. Box 20188 / Seattle, WA 98102

Still dotting the j’s and crossing the t’s on your application? Not to worry. Rolling admissions continues on to May 22nd.

Must we remind you?

We’ve said it before, and golly gosh darn it, we’re 110% willing to say it again: if you haven’t yet signed up for the NARAL Run and Walk for Choice, you are behind the bell curve. And nobody wants to be behind the bell curve.

What is it? A run and/or walk around Greenlake in support of NARAL. And when? That would be Saturday, May 9th. It’s one of the best possible reasons for a nice walk around the lake! Be thurr.

Your weekly cash money moment

Last week we got touch off the beaten path with our Cash Money Moment. This week, we’re into the stratosphere. This guy decided to add his drumming to a Lil’ Wayne/Cash Money original, an idea that could be doomed to failure. But he pulls it off. In an ideal world you’d be able to hear the original song better, but this is no ideal world, and dude can drum!

Why urban design matters

Well, actually, there are a lot of reasons, but this is an interesting take on it. Nate Silver (oh He of FiveThirtyEight fame) goes to town on how the built environment shapes cultural and community norms. One of his points? City design equals community, and community equals political perspective. Therefore, how you build your community defines your local politics. Interesting, eh? Kind of puts your neighborhood planning process into a new light…

Watch, enjoy, critique.

Thanks to Seattle Transit Blog for the vid.

Live from Neumo’s

When we threw the City Council Spectacular last week, we wanted to give the candidates a chance to tell us why they are running. So we did. And we recorded their reason for running. And we put it on “the internet” (which is where you are now).

And so, the Bus is proud to present, in reverse alphabetical order (let’s mix things up, eh?), the candidates for Seattle City Council, and why they’re running for office:

Rusty Williams

Robert Sondheim

Jordan Royer

Robert Rosencrantz

Dorsol Plants

Mike O’Brien

David Miller

Nick Licata

Marty Kaplan

Jessie Israel

David Ginsberg

Richard Conlin

David Bloom

Sally Bagshaw

Thanks to Joshua Guerci for the video work!

New hotness

Golden Mic King

One of our favorite young dudes on the local music scene is GMK, aka Golden Mic King, aka the Brilliance (his words, not ours).

He’s opening up for Wale at Neumo’s on Wednesday, and recently released a remix of Wale’s “Chillin” along with New York it-girl-of-the-moment Lady GaGa. It is, as the kids say, “that fire.”

Download right thurr. Enjoy (and thanks to Blogs Is Watching).

March forth

Not a date, nor a marching band, but a proliferation of good events coming up, mainly centered around marches.

The first: the May Day march for worker’s rights, sponsored by El Comite.

The second: One America forum on immigration (conveniently close to the above rally. Huh. Maybe you should go).

And finally, the third: the 6th annual NARAL Run and Walk for choice!

Whew. Lots of good things. Choose one. Or two. Be there!

Cupcakes in the white house?

Yup. Local cupcake purveyour/Bus homeslice Jody Hall was recently in Washington DC talking health care reform. And not just in DC, but in the White House itself. That’s big time. That’s real talk. Get ’em Jody! And it reminds us about the May 30th health care march coming up. Good music, good policy, better health care. Boom.