These days, Patti Smith would trade a wheelbarrow full of National Book Awards to be able to write a song this droll and catchy and cool. She plays Boot N’ Saddle on February 20th.

  GLENN GREENWALD: The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority. The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges […]

  ROLLING STONE: He doesn’t look how he used to look, of course, all resplendent in buckskin fringe, sometimes sporting an ascot or the Technicolor patchwork vest sewn by his girls, with his suave goatee and his mad Rasputin eyes and his fantastical ability to lunge out of his seat at the judge presiding over his trial, pencil at the ready to jam into the old guy’s throat, before being subdued and thereby helping to cement a guilty verdict. Those days are gone. He’s 79 years old. He’s an old man with a nice head of gray hair but bad […]

“Amerikan Hypocrisy” by SAINT_ISACARIOT THE ATLANTIC: After years in the political wilderness, marijuana lobbyists find themselves in a strange position as 2014 approaches: Suddenly their power and support are growing, lawmakers are courting them, and the prospects look brighter to build on major progress the movement made in 2012. Last year, voters in Colorado and Washington legalized recreational use of marijuana, the first states to do so. Those victories have bestowed new legitimacy on the cannabis community, giving it a better field on which to fight. By engaging in political-money games, endorsing candidates, confederating cannabis-related businesses, and old-fashioned lobbying, the […]

  NATION OF CHANGE: The few rich men who control the Capitol have successfully managed to consolidate the majority of the nation’s wealth into their hands. The Capitol has taken away food stamps from hungry families and given it to their rich benefactors in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, and other forms of corporate welfare. Career politicians are even smashing up the possessions of homeless people with a sledgehammer with impunity, while wearing designer clothes. These rich men also control the news broadcasted on the Capitol’s airwaves that brainwashes the impoverished masses into believing their suffering is their own fault, that they’re only starving because they don’t know how to work […]

A short film by Wes Anderson, funded by Prada and starring Jason Schwartzman as a hapless race car driver in Italy circa 1955 who literally crashes into his ancestral homeland. Ciao, baby. RELATED: Because you can never have too much Wes Anderson in your life, American Laundromat Records will pay homage to the beloved director next year by releasing a tribute album featuring covers of songs from his past films. […] Anderson is known for putting together exceptional soundtracks for his movies that fans have begun look forward to almost as much as the movie itself. The tribute album will […]

  FRESH AIR Americans remember Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the president who led the country through the Great Depression and World War II. He bolstered the nation’s spirits with his confidence, strength and optimism, despite being crippled by polio, a disability that’s largely invisible in photographs and newsreels of his presidency. But historian James Tobin says, despite misimpressions to the contrary, Americans of Roosevelt’s day were well aware of his disability. In fact, Tobin says, Roosevelt’s struggle to overcome his affliction was an important part of the personal narrative that fueled his political career. Tobin tells Fresh Air‘s Dave Davies, […]

James Franco and Seth Rogan’s shot-by-shot spoof of Kanye West’s video for “Bound 2 (Explicit).” This is almost as funny as Kanye’s version, although we’re pretty sure Kanye’s version isn’t supposed to be funny. Megalomania — it’s a helluva drug. RELATED: The original “Bound 2? feels like nothing in rap, but mirrors much of modern comedy. It’s irony taken to the vanishing point, where no one knows if it’s supposed to be dumb-funny, a smart commentary on dumb-funny, or just dumb. There is something amazing about the “Bound 2? video. It evokes a response, it’s almost Warholian in it’s ability […]

Unreleased cover of the The Schoolhouse Rock number. Haunting, as always.