"Nobody, but nobody, in the hip hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power."
What fucking idiots. And again.

Whenever anyone refers to Yglesias talking about culture [see the 2nd link] I'll repost this, from Sam Rosenfeld, then of TAP, to me in an email from about 2002. He'd misunderstood my point:

"And for the record (don't post this), Yglesias as an individual has a great, self-aware sense of humor and is much more starkly honest (if also unapologetic) about his own elitism than most liberals. Take him out for a beer and I think you'd find that."

My comments are at the first of the two links.


Between a hypocrite and a thug I'd choose the thug. I've been shown respect by people who understood what I was and wasn't and who understood that I understood. Hypocrites show no respect.
From 2003

War only can be used as entertainment in two ways by two groups of people: those who treat it as a game played by choice- a deadly game but one that can be left and rejoined- and those who know only war. The most important difference is that the former have never been the victims of a war, only the warriors. They didn't learn to kill by feeling pain.