I recently downloaded the Dixie Chicks latest album, Taking the Long Way, from iTunes. Of coures, I’d heard quite a bit of e-chatter about the song “Not Ready to Make Nice,” billed as a “strike that apology” homage to their well-publicized criticism of Gulf War II when the initial invasion took place. Soon after buying the album and giving it a listen, I heard two of the Dixie Chicks on NPR’s Fresh Air talking about death threats they got after criticized the war, and how this latest musical offering attempts to speak about some of their experiences in the last few years.
I’m impressed… I adore the album (it’s really about all I’ve been listening to in my me time — except, of course, NPR) and especially like the above-mentioned song:
I’m not ready to make nice /
I’m not ready to back down /
I’m still mad as hell /
and I don’t have time to go round and round and round.
It’s too late to make it right /
I probably wouldn’t if I could /
Cause I’m mad as hell /
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should.
In other anecdotes, Daniel mentioned on his blog something we heard on Jon Stewart the other day. It went something like this:
Extremists dominate politics because moderates have other shit to do.
The political scientist in me is furiously trying to design a regression equation to prove that’s true, but the interested observer in me says that assertion definitely passes the smell test.
And if I CAN come up with a regression model that will prove that’s true, I promise I’ll let you know.
Speaking of school, I have to tell you about my latest research project. I’m actually pretty psyched about it. I’m investigating whether survey respondents interviewed after a presidential election will report different “this is who I voted for” results when they don’t know the ultimate outcome of the election. Namely, I’m looking at 1996 and 2004, both elections where post-election surveys were conducted after we knew who won, as benchmarks for reported voting … then looking at 2000, when the vast majority of post-election surveys were conducted before the Supreme Court decision and Al Gore’s concession, to see if the reported voting is different. Maybe that sounds really boring to you, but I’m so excited to find my answer and write it all up! I am really confident this will be the most important paper/research I’ll try to get accepted this fall for conference presentation next spring.