Brooks: Thunder job is "where I wanted to be"

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brooks-thunder-job-where-wanted-174944028--spt.html

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Russia's first-half oil output up despite June slip

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-oil-price-slide-highlights-risks-putins-russia-101154033--business.html

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NATO urges UN to enforce Syrian peace plan

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nato-urges-un-enforce-syrian-peace-plan-133648469.html

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How the 'derecho' storm came to be such a surprise to the mid-Atlantic

As the system moved south, forecasters started to realize this was not just an ordinary summer thunderstorm. The last time a derecho hit the US was in 2009, in the Plains states.

By Ron Scherer,?Staff writer / July 2, 2012

Giovanny Alvarez, a letter carrier for the US Postal Service, leaves after delivering mail to a residence in Washington, D.C., Monday, July 2, damaged by the powerful storm that swept through the region Friday.

Evan Vucci/AP

Enlarge

Weather forecasters first saw the small cluster of thunderstorms as they formed in northern Indiana on Friday afternoon.

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As the system moved south, over the heat and humidity in central Indiana and Ohio, the forecasters started to realize this was not just an ordinary summer thunderstorm. There were reports of wind gusts topping 80 miles per hour. Radar showed the storms had formed into a bow shape and were racing along at 60 to 70 miles per hour. It had become a ?derecho,? or big wind storm, which some meteorologists call a ?land hurricane.?

This kind of weather event happens about once every five years, says Henry Margusity, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com. The last one to hit the United States was in 2009, in the Plains states.

?These are not things where you look at a computer model and predict,? Mr. Margusity says. ?It is a difficult kind of beast.?

Indeed, the question this time was: Where would the dangerous storm system go, and how long would it be a threat?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., had issued warnings for severe thunderstorms, but a computer model late on Friday afternoon predicted the system would move south into Kentucky and Tennessee.

Once the prediction center realized the system was moving to the southeast instead, forecasters thought it would lose energy once it passed over the Appalachian Mountains and air temperatures cooled in the evening. As a result, the prediction center considered the threat to the region to be a ?moderate risk,? which is one level below ?high risk.?

?In many situations, the mountains and the time of day will conspire to weaken storms,? says Greg Carbin, a warning coordination meteorologist at the prediction center. But, he adds, ?That did not happen.?

Instead, once the storms cleared the mountains in West Virginia, they were almost as intense as they had been in Ohio. ?This thing had a head of steam, and it was going to roll all the way to the Atlantic Ocean,? he says.

Hot, humid air from the Chesapeake Bay refueled the storms. Winds were gusting at close to 90 miles an hour, hurricane force by late evening. ?If the wind were only 10 miles per hour less, the damage would be far less,? says Mr. Carbin.

In hindsight, Carbin, who was not working that evening, says the system should have been advertised as high risk for damaging winds. In addition, the prediction center should have termed it a ?PDS? ? that is, a particularly dangerous situation.

?If you knew ahead of time what was going to unfold, that would be the proper thing to do,? says Carbin.

Still, the region was in fact put on alert about dangerous thunderstorms. At 6:35 p.m., the prediction center issued a watch for the mid-Atlantic, including Washington, D.C.

?We said there was a high probability of significant wind until 1 a.m.,? Carbin says. ?Anyone looking at the radar on the evening news, knowing the temperatures were very warm, would want to be concerned.?

However, he agrees that six hours is not enough warning time (the storms hit around midnight). With enough warning, meteorologists say, homeowners could grab loose items from outside and make sure they are in a sturdy building.

?You can?t outrun the storm,? says Margusity.?

The key ingredient in this storm, which Margusity terms a ?super derecho,? was very hot and humid conditions on the ground. Many locations were reporting temperatures close to 100 degrees. ?The fuel was just sitting there,? he says.

Combine that hot air with a large high-pressure system in the middle of the country. In the center of the high, winds were light. But on the periphery, they were moving along at a fast pace. That?s where the thunderstorms formed. As they developed, they poked higher and higher into the atmosphere until they started to drag down cooler air from the jet stream.

?Now, we have a whole line of storms working together, driving that high-velocity air down,? explains Alex Sosnowski, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com.

Can it happen again?

?They don?t happen every year,? answers Julie Gaddy, a senior meteorologist at Earth Networks in Germantown, Md. ?They could, but they don?t.?

Margusity thinks the storm is one of the ?top three events? of the summer.

Although the event is relatively rare, it has been studied and documented before, says Ms. Gaddy, who was out videoing lightning strikes when the storm moved in. She expects the prediction center will review its information to see if it can make a better prediction next time.

?I am sure there will be many studies and research projects,? she says.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/04BIfDIedZ8/How-the-derecho-storm-came-to-be-such-a-surprise-to-the-mid-Atlantic

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Is gay marriage debate driving young Christians from church?

Rachel Held Evans, a Christian writer, fears that a renewed culture war over the issue of gay marriage could alienate young Christians.

By Becky Bratu, msnbc.com

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth.

?Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that?s hard to give up,? evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But ?the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.?

Held Evans, who regularly speaks at Christian colleges, said the young Christians she meets are much more open to gay rights than are older generations, an observation backed up by polling data.

A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the generation gap between young Christians and their elders is large, with 44 percent of white evangelicals aged 18-29 in support of marriage equality compared to only 12 percent of those 65 and older.

According to the same survey, nearly 70 percent of young Christians also agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.

?For young Christians, having gay and lesbian friends is just a part of our life,? Held Evans said. ?It?s just really hard for us to see them as mere issues to debate, because we?re talking about our friends here.?

The shift is manifesting itself increasingly on Christian college campuses, including at Biola University in California, where, about two months ago, an anonymous group of students announced the presence of the "Biola Queer Underground," asking that the LGBT community on campus ?be treated with equality and respected as another facet of Biola's diversity."

Underground gay group emerges, shaking Christian college

At Wheaton College in Illinois, a group of alumni known as OneWheaton coalesced in 2011 to express its support of the LGBT community on campus.

?OneWheaton understands that LGBTQ issues are difficult to process at Wheaton College,? reads a statement from the group. ?We desire this to change for current students and wish to create such an environment, a safe place for them to process these issues and develop into the people they are meant to be.?? In response, school officials have said they are open to having a conversation about homosexuality on campus.

To Held Evans, American churches? attitude toward gay rights will play an important role in the retention of young Christians. In an article she wrote following North Carolina?s recent vote to ban gay marriage, Held Evans points to data mentioned in David Kinnaman?s book You Lost Me, which shows that 59 percent of teens who were raised Christian abandon the church when they become adults. One of the main reasons, the article says, is the church?s attitude toward gay rights.

Fellow Christian writer Matthew Anderson, 30, agrees that there is a generational shift taking place in Christians? support for gay rights, but he is less convinced it?ll lead to any profound changes in the near-term.

?Those of the conservative side aren?t going away. They?re just going to be a lot more careful in terms of how they frame their positions,? Anderson told msnbc.com.

He also doesn?t think younger Christians are going to embrace more liberal views on matters of sexuality, including homosexuality.

?There?s going to be a large, less vocal, at least a substantive minority? ?? it?s not an outright majority? ?? of younger evangelicals who are going to take a broadly conservative position on sexual ethics,? he said.

That position stems from the conviction that God defined marriage in the scripture as between a man and a woman, Anderson said, and Christians don?t believe they have the right to redefine it.

Jeff Hawkins Photography / Courtesy Northland Church

Joel Carl Hunter is the senior pastor of Northland church in Florida.

For thousands of years the definition of marriage has been the same, said Pastor Joel Hunter, a spiritual advisor to President Obama. ?And so, there?s some reason for the apprehension that says this thing is moving so fast that I wonder what the next 10 years will hold,? he told msnbc.com.

In Hunter?s view, the word ?marriage? cannot be used to characterize a same-sex union, but he believes having this debate on a national stage offers a unique opportunity.

?We really have an opportunity to raise the level of respect, to raise the dialogue to where no rights of one group trumps another group?s rights,? he said, adding: ?The scripture has certain listed sins, and we want to dissuade people from those behaviors, because we think in the long run if it?s in scripture then that?s not something that God approves of.?

Hunter, who leads a Florida megachurch, said he believes the government could establish a kind of civil marriage, which would not fit within the definition of Biblical marriage.

?We don?t 100% equate this as a part of the civil rights movement because for us at least a part of this is a matter of choice, it?s a behavior, and so it?s a different category than skin pigmentation,? he said. ?Having said that, we want to be sure that all Americans do have citizens? rights to enter any legal relationship that they want to.?

But finding compromise appears unlikely, Anderson believes, as most players on the national stage treat the debate as a zero-sum game.

?It?s winner-take-all, and there?s sort of no middle ground between the two positions,? he said.

While young Christians may be divided on whether gay relationships should be celebrated in the church, Held Evans said, they?re increasingly unified on their stance against legislative action, such as North Carolina?s gay marriage ban and others that will be up for votes this fall.

?The majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis,? she said. ?Even young Christians who think that gay relationships are not God?s design, a lot of them will still say ?but I think it should be legal for gay people to get married, because this is America.??

?I think the main problem we have is that a lot of the folks voting about homosexuality, voting about gay marriage, don?t know any gay people,? she said. ?And I?m certain that if they did, it would change their attitude.?

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/02/12524736-could-gay-marriage-debate-drive-young-christians-from-church?lite

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Italy's 3 injured players making progress

Associated Press Sports

updated 2:57 p.m. ET June 26, 2012

KRAKOW, Poland (AP) -Italy midfielder Daniele De Rossi and defenders Giorgio Chiellini and Ignazio Abate are undergoing treatment for injuries and are hoping to return for Thursday's European Championship semifinal with Germany.

"All three are making progress and we will do everything possible, right down to the last minute, to make them available," team doctor Enrico Castellacci said Tuesday.

De Rossi has a problem with his sciatic nerve that is affecting his left foot, and left Sunday's penalty shootout win over England in the 80th minute.

Italy's football federation said later Tuesday that De Rossi would appear at a news conference the following day, a move that usually indicates a player will be used in the next game.

Abate has a muscle problem in his left leg and Chiellini has a left hamstring problem.

Abate's replacement Christian Maggio picked up a yellow card that rules him out of Thursday's match in Warsaw.

Italy required extra time and the shootout to beat England in the quarterfinals on Sunday and has two days' fewer rest than Germany entering the semifinals.

"There is a general state of fatigue in the squad," Castellacci said. "That's to be expected after the stress and emotion of the last few matches. We're doing everything possible to recuperate our energy."

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Subway work unearths ancient road in Greece

Workers of Metro's construction company are seen at the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Workers of Metro's construction company are seen at the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Archaeologists and employees of Metro's construction company present to the media and public the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

A worker of Metro's construction company holds a fragment of old pottery in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Workers of Metro's construction company are seen at the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Archaeologists and employees of Metro's construction company present to the media and public the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece?s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city?s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city?s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

(AP) ? Archaeologists in Greece's second-largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city's main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago.

The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for Thessaloniki's new subway system, which is due to be completed in four years. The road in the northern port city will be raised to be put on permanent display when the metro opens in 2016.

The excavation site was shown to the public on Monday, when details of the permanent display project were also announced. Several of the large marble paving stones were etched with children's board games, while others were marked by horse-drawn cart wheels.

Also discovered at the site were remains of tools and lamps, as well as the bases of marble columns.

Viki Tzanakouli, an archaeologist working on the project, told The Associated Press the Roman road was about 1,800 years old, while remains of an older road built by the ancient Greeks 500 years earlier were found underneath it.

"We have found roads on top of each other, revealing the city's history over the centuries," Tzanakouli said. "The ancient road, and side roads perpendicular to it appear to closely follow modern roads in the city today."

About 7 meters (23 feet) below ground in the center of the city, the ancient road follows in roughly the same direction as the city's modern Egnatia Avenue.

The subway works, started in 2006, present a rare opportunity for archaeologists to explore under the densely populated city ? but have also caused years of delays for the project.

In 2008, workers on the Thessaloniki metro discovered more than 1,000 graves, some filled with treasure. The graves were of different shapes and sizes, and some contained jewelry, coins or other pieces of art.

A massive excavation project also took place during the 1990s in the capital, Athens, before the city's new metro system opened in 2000.

Thessaloniki's new subway is already four years behind schedule, due to the excavation work as well as Greece's financial crisis. Thirteen stations will operate initially, before a 10-station extension is added later.

Associated Press

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Israelis battle police in Tel Aviv social protest

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Immigration suddenly roiling presidential contest

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, takes a walk with his wife Ann, on the beach after a campaign stop at Holland State Park on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 in Holland, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, takes a walk with his wife Ann, on the beach after a campaign stop at Holland State Park on Tuesday, June 19, 2012 in Holland, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference at the G20 Summit, Tuesday, June 19, 2012, in Los Cabos, Mexico. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

(AP) ? No longer a backburner issue, immigration is roiling the presidential contest as President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney seek to court the nation's swelling Hispanic population. The outcome could influence political battle lines and shape American politics for generations.

By week's end, both candidates will address the same Latino political convention in Florida, showcasing contrasting political ideologies at a pivotal time. The Supreme Court is about to render judgment on a get-tough Arizona law, and just last week the Democratic president announced plans to ease deportation rules for some children of illegal immigrants.

With Election Day less than five months away, Hispanic voters are energized and paying close attention, said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which hosts this week's convention.

"There's a lot at stake. We're talking about a significant share of the American electorate that could well decide this election," Vargas said. "It's only now that both candidates are turning their attention to the Latino vote."

Indeed, both sides are crafting aggressive strategies to appeal to a demographic that is by no means monolithic but has supported Democrats in recent elections. Some Republicans fear ? and Democrats hope ? that Obama could capitalize on this moment to help solidify Hispanic voters as predominantly Democratic this fall and for years to come, much as President Lyndon Johnson hardened the black vote for Democrats as he pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The stakes are high not only for states with larger Hispanic populations such as Florida, Nevada and Colorado, but for a growing number of other battlegrounds ? Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia, among them ? where even a modest shift among Latino voters could be significant. The United States' Latino population surged from about 35 million in 2000 to 50 million in 2010, according to the Census Bureau.

As the presidential candidates head to the Florida convention, Obama is riding a wave of Latino enthusiasm over his decision to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to stay in the country and work. Under the administration plan, illegal immigrants can avoid deportation if they can prove they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED or served in the military.

The new policy could help anywhere from 800,000 young immigrants ? the administration's estimate ? to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate of 1.4 million.

The move was politically timely, in the heat of the campaign and with Obama needing to energize a key part of his base of supporters ? many of whom had grown disenchanted over the past three years. While the direct beneficiaries of the directive can't vote for Obama, his action has widespread support among American Latinos.

In fact, Obama has long enjoyed support among Hispanics ? he won 67 percent of the Latino vote in 2008.

But he risked losing their enthusiasm, partly because Hispanics have been among the hardest hit by the economic slowdown. Obama also lost some support because he hasn't fulfilled promises of a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system and because his administration has been aggressively deporting illegal immigrants. A December poll by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that 59 percent of Latinos disapproved of the president's handling of deportations.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod predicts that the president could exceed his 2008 performance with Hispanics this year, noting that his opponent then was Sen. John McCain, who had initially pushed for an overhaul of the immigration system.

Axelrod contends that Romney is "hopelessly twisted up on this issue."

Obama had troubles of his own before the administration announced the recent initiative. Supporters of many illegal immigrants ? students as well as workers ? had been mounting protests at Obama campaign headquarters this month in places such as Denver and Los Angeles.

The Romney campaign has struggled to offer a consistent response to the president's move. Romney has assailed Obama's "broken promises" on immigration in recent days but has focused on the new policy's temporary status as his prime criticism.

"These people deserve to understand what their status will be long term, not just four and a half months," Romney said on Fox News Radio this week. "And that's why I think it's important for me and for Congress to come together to put together a plan that secures the border, that insists that we have an employment verification system and that deals with the children of those who have come here illegally on a long-term basis, not a stopgap measure."

As is typical, Romney intends to focus on the economy when he faces the Latino convention on Thursday. The former Massachusetts governor argues that his economic credentials would benefit all people who have struggled under Obama's leadership in recent years ? women, younger voters and Hispanics among them.

Still, Romney's own immigration policy is unclear as he works to distance himself from harsh conservative rhetoric that was common during the extended GOP primary season earlier in the year.

Facing a Rhode Island audience in April, for example, Romney drew large cheers when he said, "We want people to come here legally. And we like it when they come here speaking English."

He did not support the Obama administration's lawsuit challenging Arizona's hardline immigration law. And he said that he would veto the DREAM Act that would have given legal status to some children of illegal immigrants. Romney has refused so far to say whether he would reverse Obama's new policy that does much the same thing, albeit on a temporary basis.

Even before he announced the new rules, Obama was looking to build his support among Latinos, vastly outspending Romney on Spanish-language television and radio. But Romney has released targeted TV and radio ads in Spanish, including some that feature one of Romney's sons who is a fluent Spanish speaker.

Simon Rosenberg, who follows immigration matters as head of the liberal-leaning group NDN, said the president's move on immigration not only helps him energize Latino voters, it also helps cast him as a president willing to take bold steps.

For a Latino community that worried that neither party was doing enough, "they now have a champion," he said. But, he added, "There will be a resonance beyond the Latino community."

Besides the new immigration initiative, the Obama camp has been using the new health care law to appeal to Hispanic voters, a rare use of the signature Obama measure in the campaign.

An ad campaign this week in Nevada, Colorado and Florida focuses on the benefits of the health care law for Hispanics and features Cristina Saralegui, a popular Spanish-language television personality who endorsed Obama this week. She says in the ad that Obama's health care law guarantees that "the great majority of Hispanics" will have access to doctors and hospitals.

___

Jim Kuhnhenn reported from Washington.

Associated Press

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The Internet Is Hosting a Really Good Discussion About Music ...

It started on Saturday, when Emily White, a 20-year-old NPR intern, admitted that she's really only ever paid for about 15 CDs in her life, but she has over 11,000 songs in her iTunes. She collected the songs from mix CDs, her college radio station's music library (which she worked at), other people's iTunes, and, yes, some illegal downloading, and she (apparently) doesn't feel too bad about not paying these artists any money for the music she enjoys every day.

And boy did the shit fly.

Really, White didn't say anything that isn't already true for a whole bunch of other people. She was just given a platform in which to say it. But, even if I initially wanted to roll my eyes and walk away from it, her post has spurred a discussion that should've happened years ago. A number of musicians have come out to defend paying for music, music fans are coming clean about their downloading habits and discussing when it's okay, when it's not okay, and thinking about what it means to share music without artist compensation.

The funniest response is from Yo La Tengo. She named them in her post as a band whose music she got for free and yesterday they Tweeted this:

On Monday David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fame, wrote an open letter to her saying:

My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we hear from the ?Free Culture? adherents.

I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it ?convenient? so you don?t behave unethically. (Besides?is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)

It's very long and unfortunately Lowery, who is rightfully very passionate about the subject, seems to take a lot of bottled up emotion and direct it at White. But, by way of his experience as a musician for over over two decades, he makes a number of very valid, interesting points. You can read it here.

Then yesterday Travis Morrison from the Dismemberment Plan, who also works at Huffington Post, responded with a confession-filled response: "Hey Dude From Cracker, I'm Sorry, I Stole Music Like These Damned Kids When I Was A Kid."

Morrison's band, the Dismemberment Plan, has actually benefited from file-sharing. After the band broke up in 2003, their music wasn't always readily available on store shelves, yet when they reunited several years later they sold out two nights at Webster Hall in NYC. I interviewed him last year, before the band made their way to Seattle, and he recognized that one reason anyone still knew who the the D-Plan was was because of the internet making music so easily accessible:

Am I wrong in believing that you are having more success and bigger audiences for this reunion tour than you've ever had in the past?

That is absolutely true. Obviously, the way that people take in information has changed 100 percent in the last seven years?it's one of the craziest cultural shifts I'll probably ever see in my lifetime. So is it par for the course, with the emphasis on live shows now? Back in the day, it took a year to get your hands on a Minutemen record. Now, it's almost like the band still exists in this weird digital way?it's all there for people to discover. The bottom line is yes, absolutely, but I don't know if other bands have gotten crazy bumps, too. I figure there's a rising tide that's lifting all boats, especially the old crappy boats that were on the beach.

Local blogger Chris Burlingame also responded to Lowery on Another Rainy Saturday:

I agree with Lowery?s basic thesis that artists deserve to be paid for their art, and certainly hope they?re paid more than they currently are. I?ve grappled with the issue of Spotify?s low payments and all of the music I have on my hard drive and iPod was obtained legally. I?m opposed to illegal file-sharing and haven?t engaged in it for many, many years. It?s unfortunate, of course, that artists are making less money than they were in years past, but it?s hardly like no one saw that coming. Nor can it be blamed on this poor intern or her generation, which he calls the ?Free Culture.? It?s kind of like how the 1980?s were dubbed the ?Me Decade.? Camper Van Beethoven put out its first album in 1985.

I think it's awesome that so many thoughtful posts are being written about this.

My opinion on the matter hasn't changed. To assume that the music exists for the taking, so long as you have a nifty device to download it with, is much like walking into a restaurant with a basket of food and demanding a talented chef prepare your dinner, the way you want it, without having to compensate them for it. You brought the food, the restaurant is supplying the kitchen, what's there to pay for? In this case, of course, you have the laptop, and the songs are just floating out there in the internet, so why not just grab it and enjoy? The answer: BECAUSE SOMEONE MADE THAT. Someone took the time to create that song. Not only did they use their talent and time, but they procured the instruments and the recording device and it didn't cost nothing. Even if someone wrote a song on a found guitar in the middle of a park on a tape recorder they borrowed from a neighbor, their time and skill is still worth something and as a fan of that song, as someone who consumes that song, you're obligated to recognize that.

But even if White doesn't agree, we shouldn't crucify her for it (although, Yo La Tengo, I'm totally cool with you stealing her bike). She's saying what so many other twenty-somethings (and other-somethings) would say, and her saying it has spurred the crucial next step: Talking about the problem and figuring out a solution.

anguilla