BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD This album would have been commercially successful if it had come out during the Detroit hip-hop boom of 2009, when people were salivating for more Black Milk and anything else Detroit-related. However, Milk let this album basque in the sun, grow with age and hone-in on sculpting a quintessential “Black Milk” style. Black Milk has been sampling guitar licks and dialing down the pitch for a while now, a technique that works well for him. However, his newest release Album of the Year suffered from overproduction, uncatchy hooks and drum breaks too complex for hip-hop. Though not […]

Ryan Dunn crash site, Route 322, 7:45 PM last night by JEFF FUSCO PREVIOUSLY: Ryan Dunn Toxicology Report PREVIOUSLY:  RIP: Ryan Dunn, Human Cannonball, Dead At 34

NEW YORK TIMES: President Obama plans to announce Wednesday evening that he will order the withdrawal of 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year, and another 20,000 troops, the remainder of the 2009 “surge,” by the end of next summer, according to administration officials and diplomats briefed on the decision. These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public. Mr. Obama’s decision is a victory for Vice […]

DAN ROTTENBERG: Many of the tragedies mentioned above spring from what I see as a naïve faith in the power of the modern sexual revolution. Women today are technically free to do all sorts of things that were forbidden to their grandmothers, which is all well and good. But in practice, rape and the notion of sexual conquest persist for the same reason that warfare persists: because the human animal— especially the male animal— craves drama as much as food, shelter and clothing. Conquering an unwilling sex partner is about as much drama as a man can find without shooting […]

Race St. & Columbus Blvd. 10:41 AM by JONATHAN VALANIA

BY LANCE DOILY I had just gotten through my first route without a near total collapse into debauchery in a couple months, so I gave my man Royce a call to celebrate over a couple cold ones at the Husker. Slunt Huskers, that is. Stone was at the helm, so it goes without saying that the tap was locked in the pour position and “Easy Livin’” was runnin’ repeat on the juke before our butts even touched the barstools. He was in rare form that night, barely getting to the second round before telling us a story about how he […]

TIME: Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America’s present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S.  Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as […]

NEW YORK TIMES: The Obama administration has long been bumbling along in the footsteps of its predecessor when it comes to sacrificing Americans’ basic rights and liberties under the false flag of fighting terrorism. Now the Obama team seems ready to lurch even farther down that dismal road than George W. Bush did. Instead of tightening the relaxed rules for F.B.I. investigations — not just of terrorism suspects but of pretty much anyone — that were put in place in the Bush years, President Obama’s Justice Department is getting ready to push the proper bounds of privacy even further. Attorney […]