Teaching Labor History to the Wealthy

The last several weeks have been extremely trying in my labor history class. When it was just a history class, it was OK. Not a great class, but a functional one. I have about 30% of the class which is really engaged in the material, some more who are so-so, and some who are brain dead. Maybe not too bad for a public school, but maybe a bit below average for where I teach. Anyway, not a big deal. Then, two weeks ago, nobody read the book so I kicked them all out of class. I wish that was the end of my problems.

But no, it gets much weirder. The last two weeks we talked about deindustrialization and then work in the present day. We read Ben Hamper's Rivethead and then Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. I then discovered how little wealthy Texas kids don't understand class in America. Last week, I kind of went off on a kid for saying that the poor should take care of themselves and that companies and the nation had no responsibility for what happened to them when factories move. Of course, the kid is the son of a CFO at some big Texas company.

Then yesterday, we are talking about the part in Nickel and Dimed when Ehrenreich is working for the housekeeping service. One student, a nice kid too, raises his hand and says this makes no sense to him because his family always had a housekeeper and she lived with them and they treated her great.

How the hell do you respond to that? If others had shot him down that would be one thing, and some people did respond mildly. But others clearly agreed. They had housekeepers or hired housekeepers and they would never treat people like that!

Yeah, sure. Let's ask the housekeepers.

I haven't responded well to all of this. Again, I went off on the kid last week and told him that he didn't know what the hell he was talking about given his background. In those words in fact. That was not my finest moment as a teacher. Yesterday, I just kept the class running but I was so dismayed that I was counting down the minutes until it was over.

The larger question here is how to teach labor history to students who have no conception of class issues. I tried to bring this up throughout the semester and put the history in a modern context, but clearly I failed because once we got to the present, the shit hit the fan. These students got real uncomfortable when it seemed that someone might be attacking their class privilege, accusing the books (and presumably me in the course evals that we did yesterday) of bias. Well, duh. Why the hell do you sign up for a class like this if aren't favorable to thinking about working-class people and their historical and present struggles with some empathy?

Part of the problem is that I take this stuff really personally. I feel passionately about environmental issues. I love teaching it and I think it is the most important area for people to get active on. But the class issues I take personally. I do carry a pretty big class chip on my shoulder and those who don't care about poor people make me angrier than the most virulent hater of the environment possibly could. So when I hear these kinds of attitudes from students that I have been working with all semester, I feel that I have failed as a teacher and that the next generation of business leaders are going to be the same callous heartless bastards as this generation.

Mostly, I feel that this is the strangest course I've ever taught and that I need to do some serious soul-searching before offering the class again, at least at an institution dominated by wealthy students. I should say that there are some fantastic working-class students who do get it and I really respect them. But their frustration was as great as mine with how the class turned out. I feel that I should offer the class again because the issue is so important but I need to plan my strategy out much more carefully than this semester, really figuring out how to a) weed those students out right away who are going to cause problems and b) make stronger connections between the past and present so that students see the connections between the historical struggles they might be interested in and the present struggles which they feel don't concern them.

I'm Bored

I haven't blogged much in the past few days, not because I haven't wanted to, but with the job interview and the end of the semester, I just haven't had time. I do plan on getting a bunch of stuff out soon though.

But it doesn't help that I am so sick and tired of the obsessive coverage of the Democratic primary. I think this serves to show that I am not really a political junkie. I am into politics, but I am long past feeling that bloggers' constant discussion of the issue has become tiresome. On my RSS feed, for a long time I was reading 80-90% of the posts, even if I was just skimming most at best. Now it is down to about 40% and has been for a few weeks. It's because I have almost stopped reading most liberal political blogs. True junkies are like addicts and it is unhealthy.

There are so many important issues going on in the world--Iraq, climate change, poverty, fuel prices, housing, etc., etc. But 3/4 of the posts on these blogs are dissecting the differences between Obama and Clinton and boosting the candidacy of their favorite.

Many of the same blogs reporting obsessively on the race are complaining about the lack of media coverage in Iraq. Well, you know, couldn't we be focusing on this? Didn't a significant amount of reporting about the war and all the terrible things the Bush administration has done come from the blogs. We are ignoring Iraq too now so we can parse the phrases of people who have slept 5 hours in the last month, figuring out what we can use against them.

Am I the only one who is bored out of my mind at this point? Not that I even wish the race was over necessarily. Hillary certainly has every right to stick it out, even if she really can't win. If Obama was losing, most of his supporters would be hoping he would stay in, much as Clinton's supporters are now. But I am just bored senseless.

The race is important. But not nearly as important as the general election. People should be writing about the primary of course. But they are numbing my brain at this point. It's just not interesting to write 40,000 posts about the subject at the expense of every other issue on the planet.

People can blog about whatever the heck they want to and it's not my place to tell them to stop it. But can we at least keep this race in perspective? These are two candidates who stand for almost the exact same things. 90% of their platform is the same. It's about personality, race, gender, age, etc.

I guess the questions I have to these bloggers writing obsessively about this stuff is this: Do you really think that the primary is that much more important than all the other issues going on in the world? To what extent should people be discussing this primary in such detail while ignoring the rest of the world?

I don't know, maybe I'm just bitchy. This post sucks because I don't feel that I'm articulating my thoughts well. But I'm just really frustrated and I feel that my spirit is being sucked away every time I read another post on how horrible Hillary is or how this or that state didn't matter.

Greatest. Sports Promotion. Ever.

As great as the independent baseball leagues are is, this may be the greatest promo for game attendance ever. The Amoeiro Clube de Futbol [Soccer] in Spain has divided its field into 6000 parcels available for sale at 10 Euros per parcel. Amoeiro then releases Rubia, the cow (vaca) onto the field. Whichever parcel she ends up defecating on, the owner wins a prize, ranging from cars to travel packages to motorcycles to a 32-inch TV. So if the cow craps on your square, you win! Even better, the contest is poetically called "Caca de la Vaca" (Crap of the Cow), and the webpage even has an animated, mooing cow that craps, revealing what the prizes are. Awesome.

(Via Randy).

Historical Image of the Day

Margaret Fuller, transcendentalist, women's rights activist, author of Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845), editor of the transcendentalist journal The Dial from 1840 to 1842, first female foreign correspondent for the New York Tribune. She may have been the first female correspondent for any American newspaper, but I'm not sure about this. She died in 1850 at the age of 40 when she was returning to the US with her Italian revolutionary husband and their young child when their ship slammed into a sandbar near Fire Island, New York. Many have also said that she was the likely model for Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Why I Hate Copacabana, No. 67

While I love Rio, I absolutely hated going to Copacabana (a region of Rio, not a club), or even passing through it. Among my complaints, it was overcrowded (allegedly 25,000 people per square kilometer), traffic was perpetually stopped, and it was full of racist, selfish, old middle-class people who put on the airs of being far wealthier and "elite" than they actually were. (If they were nearly as "elite" as they think they are, they'd live in Ipanema or Sao Conrado or Barra da Tijuca, and NOT Copacabana). It is just a bastion of decaying bourgeois idiocy and racism (and not always subtle - one Copacabana resident I knew once openly complained that black people were allowed at the shopping malls now when she went to a mall a few years ago). Parts of Copacabana were no less pretty than other parts of Rio, but its residents and poorly-planned structure were just too much for me, literally offering dozens of reasons I really didn't like it. (And to get a better sense of the idiocy of the Brazilian middle-class, Venha Futuro has some great observations. The only thing I'd add is, in my personal and fully-subjective experience, Copacabana is Brazilian middle class "values" on steroids).

Well, add one more reason. Apparently, somebody has gone through and poisoned a bunch of the trees along one block on the beachfront (the article is in Portuguese, but the picture is easily understood). Police are trying to figure out who did it, and why. Residents are saying that it was probably some beachfront resident who didn't want the trees blocking his/her view of the ocean. And as horrible and vague ("somebody"), I'm inclined to agree. That kind of attitude is exactly the kind of self-centered, pretentious, putting-on-class-airs crap that you find from too many residents in Copacabana. Certainly, not all are like that, and the article mentions how many residents of this particular block are appalled (one 61-year-old woman worried that the elderly that go to the beach will "fry without the shade," though I'm not quite sure how, given that the beach itself has no trees on it, and you can rent umbrellas). But the fact that you have somebody doing this, killing what were beautiful trees, is bad enough; the fact that it might be for a better view of the beach is just appalling, and all too believable. Stupid Copacabana...

Film Review--Daisy Kenyon (1947)

Over the years, I’ve become a bigger and bigger fan of Henry Fonda and Joan Crawford. When I first started watching a lot of older films, I avoided those with bigger stars of the day because, without having any experience with them of my own, I was easily taken in by the established personas and believed them entirely. I was a big fan of Humphrey Bogart, despite obvious acting flaws, but wouldn’t watch something with Jimmy Stewart. It all came down to my acceptance of their particular personas.

In the case of Fonda, my eyes were opened by Once upon a Time in the West, where his Frank throws the good guy image I had out the window. At the time, I understood that this role was the first villain he had played. On a scale of purely evil characters, this may be true but, the more films with him that I watch, the more I see conflict, both light and dark, in the characters he plays. Sure, there are still a lot of Tin Stars out there, but the range of characters was far more varied than I’d ever given him credit for.

Crawford’s case is different, but more important. I avoided her films because she has been presented my whole life, since the publication of Mommy Dearest, as a real life monster that should be avoided at all cost. Because of how she has been accused of treating her children, and it is deplorable, this now comes first with her actual onscreen work virtually forgotten. I know few people my age who are fans of her work, but nearly everyone knows her cruel persona. I can’t help but look at her myself through this filter, but the more I see of her work, starting in Tod Browning’s 1929 lurid classic The Unknown, the more her strength and talent overshadows whatever she may have done in her life. This comes most clear to me watching her 1947 vehicle, directed by Otto Preminger and adapted from a novel by Elizabeth Janeway, Daisy Kenyon.

Although the DVD is under the banner of “Fox Film Noir,” it’s not a genre film in any way. The only reason to call it so is its high contrast black and white photography, but that’s not a very good reason. Regardless, it is a pretty simple romantic triangle story about a commercial artist (Crawford) involved with a married lawyer (Dana Andrews) at the same time as an ex-soldier (Fonda) in the years just after WWII. She is strong, successful, and the center of the picture, with the handsome leading men competing for her affections. The world that revolves around her is definitely not a Noir world.

Joan Crawford can certainly drive a picture, and she does some great work here. She was in her forties at this point and the part was written for someone fifteen years younger (a rarity then and now). This gets hidden in superficial ways: the aforementioned darkly lit photography and the wardrobe department made heavy use of their lacey collar drawer, but it’s the strength of her performance that really makes her age irrelevant. Both leading men are conflicted and Preminger does really well keeping their motives secret until the end. Andrews, self-aggrandizing and actively aggressive, plays against Fonda and his passive-aggressive strategies very well. They are equals working against each other, while becoming friends, toward the same goal.

But it’s the details in the characters and the issues that Preminger dealt with that make the film work so well. Fonda clearly has PTSD, half a century before it was so-called. Haunted by dreams of the war and scarred in his every day life, Fonda seems as downright crazy as I’ve ever seen him. Andrews’ character has a big case defending a Japanese-American whose land had been stolen while he was interned in the camps. The still hot anti-Asian sentiment at the time of the film is directly dealt with, and is a surprising touch that does not come from the original text (in the novel, apparently, he is working on some big military spending project). There is a distinct homoerotic subtext and, with undercurrents of child abuse and divorce, Daisy Kenyon hits on a lot of taboos for 1947 and is considerably more progressive than I would have expected.

By all reports, everyone involved in the production were lukewarm to negative about the finished product. The film was afterward forgotten, and this is its first ever home release. I may disagree with the film’s misclassification, but at least its available.

Observations on Fernando Lugo's Election in Paraguay

On Sunday, Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, won the presidency in Paraguay. While some newspapers and news sources are portraying Lugo's win as just another leftist coming into office in South America, the New York Times really gets it right. Yes, Lugo's win is technically a case of a "leftist" in American parlance (which often means "center-left" in Latin America - the political skewing is our problem, not theirs), but it's a major and extremely important victory, for it finally ends the 61-year rule of the Colorado party, which had been the party of Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguay's brutal dictator for 35 years. The promise for change within Lugo's election is certainly huge, but it's still tenuous.

In this regard, I fully agree with the caution of the NYT and the Times Online. Lugo's victory, while important, was also by plurality, and he doesn't exactly have some "mandate" (except in George Bush parlance, where 51% is a "mandate"). I think the Times Online's comparison to Lula is relevant, too. Like Lula, Lugo is going to have to overcome some pretty stiff opposition, particularly given how dominant the Colorado party is within the basic state apparatus. While it may be bad for Brazil, renegotiating the Itaipu dam for Paraguay could help broaden Lugo's support along nationalist lines (though Lula has already said he won't review the treaty; that doesn't mean he won't ever, but it's definitely not going to happen easily). Lugo will definitely have to tread lightly at first, but I think there's a lot of promise here. Hopefully, he will take Lula's approach of open dialog with anybody and everybody. Paraguay probably can't benefit economically to the level that Brazil has under Lula; Paraguay simply doesn't have the presence in the global economy that Brazil already had (based on size alone) when Lula entered. Still, there is a strong chance for Lugo to turn things around, provided he works diplomatically and the opposition doesn't intentionally block any programs that could help revitalize Paraguay's economy and society.

Brrr...

Current temperature in Calgary: 14
Wind Chill: -2

Date: April 19.

Hmmm......

A Little Bit of Opera on Saturday Afternoon

For those who are interested, I can't recommend strongly enough the radio program "Metropolitan Opera with Margaret Juntwat." I'm sure there are multiple stations where you can hear it (I'm currently enjoying it via WCLV's live feed on the internet). I never knew of this program; I stumbled upon it when I learned that I am able to hear Philip Glass's (out-of-print) opera Satyagraha in its entirety for the first time. (The opera is about Ghandi - the first act just ended, and it's amazing). What really makes Juntwat's program great, though, is what happens prior to the show and during the intermissions. I've never had any opera contextualized so strongly, and during the intermissions, they have included items like an interview with Glass upon the production of Satyagraha at the Met this month, an essay on Tolstoy's influence on Ghandi, and others.

And even if you don't like Glass (or even opera) that much, you still get to listen to a live opera at the met on a Saturday afternoon for free, instead of paying a minimum of 85$. And how cool is that?

My Upcoming Anti-US Rant

As some readers know, I have a job interview next week at a Canadian school. One of the things I have to do is come up with a 15 minute talk about why to learn about U.S. history. It's not a hard thing to put together, but it's weird. I've never had to explain this question before. For Americans, I can just say that you should learn about your damn country. But for Canadian students, it's an interesting challenge.

I didn't really plan it this way, but the whole talk, and in fact just about everything I am putting together for this interview, is basically an anti-American rant. I don't want it to be necessarily, but if they want to know my feelings about these issues, well, I guess they are going to get them. My classes are notoriously depressing anyway. So I guess they will know what they are going to get. Still, I could see my images of lynchings, Wounded Knee, anti-Chinese riots, and massacres of Filipinos not going over well, particularly since there are exactly 0 images that view the US in a positive way.

On the other hand, maybe they'll think I'm trying to get out of the country! Which isn't really true, but whatever.

This is my first on-campus interview and I have this feeling of impending disaster. Who knows though. I am pretty underprepared. After a very hard year and a week after defending my dissertation, my energy to prepare three different talks is really not there.

In other news, the high in said Canadian city is supposed to be about 20 and snow. So that ought to be interesting at least.

And if anyone can suggest any good Canadian jokes to tell, let me know.

Chris Gaffney, RIP

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the brilliant country/soul singer-songwriter-accordionist Chris Gaffney had severe liver cancer. It sounded bad and indeed it was.

Gaffney died last night at the age of 57.

A real tragedy.

Erik's Random 10

An interesting 10 this week. Any of these songs I would be happy to write something about.

Orgone is a leading band in the neo-funk/soul scene. At their best, I think they are very very good. In particular, the tracks with Fanny Franklin singing, such as "I Get Lifted" are really first rate. Bands like Orgone are breathing new life into a great musical tradition that had faded in recent decades.

I will say though that I place the songs with Franklin singing and the songs without vocals into 2 separate categories. When she sings, I am totally into it. On the many instrumental tracks, my attention wanders. A lot of bands that reach back into the glories of 60s and 70s danceable music are prone to a lot of instrumental numbers. I blame the hippies. Everyone is looking for some kind of jam-esque music I guess. Orgone seems to be no exception. But I find the vocals to be absolutely vital to this kind of music, especially when you have a real talent behind the mic. The occasional instrumental track is fine to set off the vocal numbers, but 1/2 instrumental? Not so interesting unless there is something really interesting happening, such as in creative jazz. Orgone always puts down a good groove, but groove alone is not always that riveting to me.

Either way, I do recommend their album The Killion Floor.

1. Orgone, I Get Lifted
2. Walk Don't Run, El Garage de Gina Monster
3. Pink Floyd, Echoes
4. Michael Shreve, Tell Me Everything
5. Wayne Hancock, Miller, Jack, and Mad Dog
6. Duke Ellington & His Orchestra, East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
7. The Freight Hoppers, Nobody's Business
8. Son House, Son's Blues
9. Tom Waits, Rains On Me
10. Merle Haggard, I'll Be A Hero (When I Strike)

Mister Trend's Random 10

Roland Kirk is another one of those amazing jazz musicians who seems all but forgotten today. Kirk, blind from a very young age, was technically remarkable, creating his own horns and often able to play more than one horn at the same time. It wasn't some gimmick, though, like Kenny G holding one note for forever - Kirk could flat out play. He moves from swing to dixie to bop to free jazz effortlessly from album to album, and even from song to song. Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith, the album "Stompin' Grounds" comes from, is a minor masterpiece, with Kirk exploring nearly all styles of jazz. This isn't some hokey, tribute-type album - the music is genuinely great, and Kirk is natural in all settings. It's not my favorite of his, but it's close. His death at 41 in 1977 is as big a shame, if not a bigger loss, than Coltrane's early death, and even after his stroke in 1976, he showed no sign of creative loss. Kirk is definitely one of the 20th century's greatest jazz artists, and deserves much more credit than he gets.

1. "Pastorinhas" - Noel Rosa (with Silvio Caldas)
2. "Address" - Rashied Ali
3. "Lies" - The Black Keys
4. "Hear My Train A Comin' [Electric]" - Jimi Hendrix
5. "Despedida do Amor" - Musica Folclorica do Norte e Nordeste do Brasil
6. "Desculpe, Babe" - Os Mutantes
7. "Stompin' Grounds" - Rahsaan Roland Kirk
8. "There's No Fucking Rules, Dude" - !!!
9. "Ventolin (Video Version)" - Aphex Twin
10. "Shining Light" - Neil Young

Historical Image of the Day

Wedding dresses, 1897

My Near-Death Experience

I had always wondered what would happen if a plane hit a flock of birds. You'd think it would happen more often.

Unfortunately, I actually found out what happens when my plane hit a flock of geese at 15,000 feet when flying back from Albuquerque after my dissertation defense.

Let me tell you that the one sound you don't want to hear when flying is a loud THUMP. That can't be good. One wing had a whole in it. The other was severely dented. They got in the engines too. One engine had to be shut off.

We returned to Albuquerque. On the way, we were prepared for an emergency landing. The flight attendant told us how to operate the emergency doors. We were told that if/when the captain yelled "EVACUATE" that we were supposed to wrap our arms around our head and put it in our lap. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere when we landed.

Luckily, it was actually a very smooth landing. But let me tell you, those last few minutes before the plane landed were the strangest of my life. For the first time, I really thought that there was a chance I could die. It was an actual possibility. I wasn't really terrified, particularly because the plane actually sounded fine the whole time. Maybe I figured it was OK. But it was a very reflective time. I sort of decided that for 34 years, I had done pretty good. I had traveled to something like 11 countries and 40 states. I had mostly been nice to people I think. I don't know that I would have left the world better than I found it, but I tried. And I had finished my dissertation. In fact, I could read the newspaper headline, "Professor Dies in Plane Crash Days After Flying to Defend Dissertation." Gary Busey could play me in the movie.

I'll tell you one thing--it felt pretty goddamn good to put my feet on the ground that night.

As for my curiosity about the world, allow me to send a message to the powers that be--please don't satisfy my curiosity ever again. I really don't want to know the answers to these questions.

Globalization Readings

In the fall, I am teaching a history of globalization. I'm just wondering if anyone out there has some useful suggestions for readings. I am focusing on environmental change, labor issues, gender, religion, and maybe popular culture. But I am open to anything interesting.

I think I am assigning the following:

Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves (about RCA's constant search for cheap labor
Vandana Shiva, Stolen Harvest (about globalization and the world food supply)
Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialisms (about environmental change and colonization)

I am probably going to assign something on the Zapatistas. I'm thinking of Ara Wilson's The Intimate Economies of Bangkok for a good book on gender. Maybe another book as well. My school assigns a lot of work so I will also be having the students read some book chapters too, where I will pick up more gender and religion issues. I am curious about the edited collection entitled Globalization, Gender, and Religion: The Politics of Women's Rights in Catholic and Muslim Contexts. Could be good for a chapter or two.

Anyhow, thoughts?

The World of Independent Baseball

King Kaufman, Salon's mild, innocuous sportswriter, today published a fairly interesting piece on independent league baseball. There was a rookie-A team (as opposed to a rookie A-Team) in Eugene growing up where I remember seeing Tom Gordon coming into the league, but nothing like this. I've never experienced this level of baseball, except for Jose Canseco and Ricky Henderson jokes, but would really like to see it for myself. Wacky promotions, direct fan involvement, and trading a player for a pallet of beer...now that's old school.

Lyrad's Occasional Image

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg on the set of Sabotage, June 1968.

Lyrad's Random 10

Off the top of my head, Susie Ibarra is the only Asian-American female jazz drummer I can think of. I'm sure there are more, but I've never heard of them. She's an amazing drummer who has worked with pretty much everyone in the NY jazz scene over the years and has emerged in her own right as a very good improvisational band leader. "Ancients" comes from her Flower after Flower album on Tzadik. Here, she plays drums, kulintang (Filipino gamelin) and various percussion with violin, two clarinets, flute, trumpet, bass, accordion, and piano. Depending on the track, the improvisations are either quite beautiful or quite difficult, but it's an intriguing album that deserves multiple listens. Of note here is Pauline Oliveros on the accordion. She has developed a "deep listening" style of playing the instrument that uses the reverberations of the recording space (she once recorded in a two million gallon underground cistern that has a 45 second reverberation time) to influence and change her sound, often resulting in walls of noise. When this is added into this mix of master instrumentalists, it's something to behold.

1. Susie Ibarra--Ancients
2. Fred Frith, Mark Dresser & Ikue Mori--Hello, I Must Be Going
3. Ivie Anderson--Twice Too Many
4. Nico Fidenco--Make Love on the Wing (from the soundtrack to Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals)
5. Benny Goodman--Tiger Rag
6. Seks Bomba--The Cat [for Marvin]
7. Guy Klucevsek--Viavy Rose Variations
8. Antonin Dvorak--Domov muj [My Home] (Overture) for Orchestra, Op.62a (Czech PO; Libor Pesek, cond)
9. Trusty--Goodbye Dr. Fate
10. Roy Budd--Fields of Green and Skies of Blue (from the soundtrack to Soldier Blue)

Cosmopolitan America

About a week ago, Rob had an interesting post about cosmopolitan cities in America. Comparing San Francisco to Cincinnati, he wrote

For O'Reilly, San Francisco represents a rejection of America, which is to say a rejection of the set of imaginary traditions that social conservatives hold dear. The hopeful thing, I think, is that fewer people share O'Reilly's vision than he believes; these charts seem to indicate that Americans, on the whole, are pretty tolerant of the cosmopolitan idea. I think that the failure of anti-immigration politics (in spite of the handwringing of folks like Mickey Kaus) to really gain much traction in the last couple of election cycles indicates that more people think about San Francisco in the way I do than the way that O'Reilly does. It makes me optimistic that there's space for a genuinely (almost uniquely) American civic nationalism, even if that nationalism is at deep odds with those who most enthusiastically wrap themselves in the American flag. I'm also hopeful that, in twenty years, Cincinnati will become more like San Francisco than the reverse, and that we'll all be the better for it.

Right, but it's even bigger than that. For the pleasure of people who like Afghani food and hearing different languages on the street, more cosmopolitan cities are great, but the real fear for O'Reilly and ilk is Americans beginning to understand foreign cultures, regardless of where they live.

This brings me to a conversation I had with my Mom the other day. First, a note on her. "Cosmopolitan" is not a word you would use to describe my mother. She had never been outside the country until 2 years ago. She has no interest in travel. She has always found certain Latino men sexy, particularly Julio Iglesias and Rafael Palmeiro. I tried not to explore this fascination too deeply.

Anyway, when Lyrad and I left home, she lost her identity as a mother. She never worked outside the home, mostly for health reasons and also because of our Dad's old-fashioned gender hangups. But she did start getting involved with foreign exchange students. It was perfect; hosting them allowed her to be a Mom, plus she could work on placing these students by turning Lyrad's now unused bedroom into an office.

When I was growing up she was a Democrat but then switched to the Republicans to express her opposition to the gay rights movement in the early 90s. Whether she still feels this way is another thing I don't want to explore. But through being exposed to all these foreign cultures, both her and my Dad, who is a pretty conservative guy, have had their eyes opened pretty wide.

She called me the other day asking what halal was. This is because her program is trying to place Muslim students in rural Oregon. The idea of my Mom needing to understand Islamic dietary laws was mindblowing to me and is a conservative's nightmare. Both her and my Dad are big time Obama supporters and will even vote for Hillary if she is the nominee, although neither can stand her. But they have talked to all these people about how the European socialized health care and have become converts.

But of course most conservative whites have not had their world broadened in this way. Republicans can only hope this continues. Michael Sokolove's story on politics in his home town of Levittown, Pennsylvania illustrates this point well. There are many traditional white working-class Democrats in Levittown who want Hillary to win the presidency but will vote for McCain over Obama, because they just flat out aren't voting for a black man. This is still an isolated white place with old-style working-class concerns. Certainly the Democratic Party needs to work for these voters, but these are also classic Reagan Democrats for whom race matters a lot. They don't want a cosmopolitan America. It threatens their identity as white Americans and what they believe that stands for--hearing English, eating traditional European-based foods, living and working around other whites, and making enough money to buy a new car every couple of years. Sokolove relates this incident:

Steve Woods sat drinking a Coors Light and talking with his buddies. A Philadelphia Phillies spring-training game was on TV, and he glanced up at it every time the audio picked up the crack of the bat. I asked him if the presidential campaign interested him. “Absolutely,” he said. Rapid fire, he told me the issues he cared about: “No. 1, gas prices. It’s killing everybody. No. 2, immigrants. They should go back to Mexico. Three, guns. Everybody should have the right to bear arms. In fact, everyone should have a gun in this day and age.”

I wondered if he was a Republican. “Are you kidding?” he said. “I’m a Democrat all the way. I hate Republicans.”

If McCain can tap these votes, he might have a chance to pull this election out.

But in the long run, what Rob and I hope for becomes closer to reality and what O'Reilly and the remnants of the white working class like Steve Woods hold dear is disappearing. For all that people slam on Cincinnati, I have little doubt that it is far more cosmopolitan than it was 20 years ago. The gap between Cincy and San Francisco is narrowing every day. Every time a new Spanish radio station starts broadcasting in Iowa, every time a Vietnamese restaurant opens in Utah, every time the child of South Carolina conservatives makes friends with a Guatemalan or Salvadoran-American at school, the conservatives lose. They know this and it scares the hell out of them.

Cosmopolitanism may be the hope of American society and I am confident that the nation will only get more urbane with each passing year.

Historical Image of the Day

Henry Adams, 1875. Grandson of John Quincy Adams, great grandson of John Adams. Leading Victorian intellectual. Author of The Education of Henry Adams. Perhaps America's greatest stick in the mud.

Erik's Random 10

Calm seems to be a pretty good Japanese band that mixes traditional Japanese sounds with modern dance music. Truth be told, I've only listened to it once or twice. I just got it from a collection entitled "The Very Best of the Far East." This and other similar collections are really fantastic sets, providing you with 2 or 3 CDs worth of interesting music from an area for about $5. You can get them on Amazon and I'd recommend them as an intro to both traditional and modern sounds of the world.

1. Calm, Long Way Long Time
2. The Meat Purveyors, Car Crash
3. Eyvind Kang, The Eternity
4. Drive-By Truckers, Birmingham
5. Norman Blake, The Rights of Man Hornpipe
6. Frank Jenkins, Home Sweet Home
7. Flute Solo off the album "Folk Music of Ethiopia
8. Richard Thompson, Should I Betray?
9. R.B. Morris, The Ballad of Thunder Road
10. Elvis Costello, Crawling to the USA

Mister Trend's Random 10

For all the love Lou Reed (generally deservedly) gets for his lyrics, I feel that, at his best moments, John Cale at worst matches and often is a better wordsmith than Reed. "Guts," off Cale's 1975 album Slow Dazzle, is a great example of this. It probably has my favorite opening lines of any song ever: "The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife. Did it quick, then split." The song's title comes from the fact that somebody (presumably the narrator) killed the guy, leaving him and his guts "all over the living room floor Like parrot shit, parrot spit, parrot shit was shot." Cale remains as cool as a cucumber throughout the cinematic portrayal of the events (the shotgun "operatic in its self disgust), until the end, when he realizes what's happened, becoming more frantic with the realizations that "the waster and the wasted get to look the same in the end." To match it all, his backing band is as rocking and dark as the lyrical content. It's just a great, great song on a great album.

1. "Shimenawa" - Bjork
2. "In a Silent Way (rehearsal)" - Miles Davis
3. "Defeito 3: Politicar" - Tom Ze
4. "Alone for a Long Time" - Charles Caldwell
5. "Stay Sweet" - Young People
6. "Untitled" - Panda Bear
7. "Guts" - John Cale
8. "Untitled 2" - Sigur Ros
9. "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" - Bob Dylan
10. "I Cover the Waterfront" - Billie Holiday

Bad News for Alberto Fujimori?

This is very good news:

A Peruvian court on Tuesday convicted a former general and three members of a military death squad of kidnapping and murder in a ruling that prosecutors say could set a precedent in the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori. The four were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 35 years in connection
with a 1992 massacre [...]
In a separate courtroom, Fujimori is being tried for allegedly authorizing the death squad to fight the guerrillas.
Jose Pelaez, the prosecutor in Fujimori's trial, said guilty verdicts in Tuesday's ruling would "establish a precedent" in the former president's case. "If the men who carried out the acts are found guilty, undoubtedly, the man at the top of the command chain, the man behind it all, Fujimori, also will be condemned for the same acts," he said before the verdict was issued.

Things are definitely starting to look grim for Fujimori. He's already guaranteed to have to serve jail time after his conviction on lesser charges. I'm not quite as confident as Pelaez that the conviction of the soldiers and the general guarantees that Fujimori will be found guilty, but the case certainly sets a precedent that doesn't bode well for the former president. Certainly, it's excellent news that the soldiers and military leaders who committed and authorized attacks on civilians are being punished with jail time; that in and of itself is a major step towards rectifying past human rights abuses in Peru. And with the precedent set, Fujimori, who as president commanded and oversaw all military (and paramilitary) activities in Peru in the 1990s is on even thinner ice. He may still be found not guilty, but the conviction of the military men was definitely a step in the right direction, and a sign of hope that other leaders involved in human rights abuses in Peru in the 90s will not get off lightly.

The 22nd Bond Movie - Now Offending Bolivians and Chileans

I'm fairly knowledgable in my James Bond movies (I've seen every movie, from the excellent Casino Royale to the painfully bad View to a Kill and the absurd Die Another Day, and all others). Given how well-done Casino Royale was, I'm pretty eager to see the 22nd movie, Quantum of Solace. However, perhaps I should have been brought on as a consultant to the film, because I'm aware of the legacy of the War of the Pacific, and I could have told the producers that using Chile to portray Bolivia would be a bad idea:

Chile-as-Bolivia has not been a popular choice, either: Hurt feelings remain between the South American neighbors over an 1879-84 war in which Chile took Bolivia's Pacific coastline. The two have not had diplomatic relations since 1978.
"We knew there was a war 100 years ago, but we didn't know it was
still an issue," [producer Michael G.] Wilson said.

Apparently, both Chileans and Bolivians are offended - Chile at being used as a surrogate for Bolivia, and Bolivia at not being used as "Bolivia." There's no real harm here, and it is a mildly amusing story. Maybe next time, the producers will do a little research on shooting locations first.

Um, That's Dr. Loomis To You

As of 4:30 pm mountain daylight time yesterday, I have a Ph.D. It's amazing enough that an accredited institution of higher learning decided to grant me such a degree. What's even more remarkable is that I earned it with distinction, which I think is essentially meaningless but is an honor that my chair has only seen once before since her arrival here in the early 90s.

So there you go. It only took 8 years.

Going through Old Baseball Cards

In addition to my impending move to New York, my parents are also leaving the house they've lived in for 14 years, so I am forced to sort out the few valuable things I might have and throw out the rest of the majority, which can politely be called "junk." As part of this process, I've been forced to go through all the baseball cards I bought between 1987 and 1991-ish. During the time it has taken to do this, I've had plenty of time to reflect on several facts.

-As a kid, I heard the horror stories of people who lost really really valuable baseball cards, and as a 7-year old, in all of my infinite wisdom, I swore I'd never ever ever throw my cards out, because they could be worth something. But now that I'm facing a major move and being forced to toss some stuff out, I realize that throwing out baseball cards is something of a necessity. And while I am trying to keep whichever cards might have value (I'll be holding on to my 1989 Upper Deck Inaugural year Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card, thank you very much), in every handful I toss out, I wonder if I'm throwing away a card like Billy Ripken's, or some other major error.

-Looking at the cards from the 80s, one thing has become patently clear: the porn-stache was a fixture to all baseball players, regardless of nation, creed, or race, in the 1980s.

-Seattle's uniforms were pretty bad in the 80s.

-I remember a lot of my childhood heroes from the Cleveland Indians, but I've had a bunch of "who?" moments when I see the cards, including Jon Perlman, Frank Wells, Tom Waddell, Ken Schrom, and Junior Noboa.

-There are great "irony" moments when you look back at baseball cards that are 20 years old, including seeing things like "Joey" (AKA "Albert") Belle, or a card celebrating Mark McGwire setting a record for rookie home-runs.

-Among my few football cards, I found a John Elway from about 1988. I'm debating whether or not to chew it up and crap it out, use it as toilet paper, piss on it, or sell it to Lyrad. It's a tough choice...

Rats and Natural Disasters in India

In my study of natural disasters, I've rarely come across something as odd (and personally disturbing) as this.

The provinces of India near Myanmar are suffering through a huge explosion in the rat population. Every 48 years or so a particular kind of bamboo goes crazy with its flowering. It deposits tons of seeds that rats love. Their populations go through the roof. Then, with no more bamboo seeds to eat, they invade farmers' fields. This has led to severe famines in 1862, 1911, and 1958-59. The article does not much explore the possible human impact in making these famines worse, though if Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts is any guide, the colonial famines were due as much to colonial neglect as the rats. It does however note that the 1959 famine was laughed off by the Indian government and led to a local guerrilla movement, which is certainly interesting.

We can therefore expect a likely famine this summer in India. Hopefully disaster relief can be prepared ahead of time.

In any case, tonight I will have nightmares of hordes of rats running over me. Great.

Dear Joe Borowski

Really? Is it really going to be another year where you do this at least 8 times? Is it really going to be another year where whenever you enter a game with a 3-run lead, I wonder if you're going to blow it again? Is it really going to be another year of innings with 2 walks, 2 hits, and a run or two scored, even when you get the save? Is it really going to be another year of people saying, "well, he did lead the league in saves," ignoring an ERA of 5.00?

If it is, just let me know, and I'll go ahead and register the web domain "www.dearericwedgepleasedontputjoeborowskionthemoundwithanythinglessthana6runlead.com".

Cheers,
Mr. Trend

The Border Fence and the Constitution

Today, the Times ran this story by Adam Liptak about how the government has ridden roughshod across the Constitution to build the border fence. To their credit, the Times has run a pretty long series of stories now on the awfulness of this idea.

Liptak shows how the government, and especially Michael Chertoff, has basically used the Constitution as toilet paper. By waiving whatever laws get in the way of the fence, Chertoff and Bush are setting the dangerous precedent that the rule of law is irrelevant whenever the government chooses.

In their lawsuit challenging Chertoff waiving environmental law, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife said

“It is only happenchance that the secretary’s waiver in this case involved laws protecting the environment and historic resources,” the groups told Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court in Washington. “He could equally have waived the requirements of the Fair Labor Relations Act to halt a strike, or the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in order to force workers to endure unsafe working conditions.”

Precisely. This is a slippery slope. Guantanamo was the first step, but many Americans ignored it because it was far away and the victims were terrorists or something. But this administration, as seen in the work of John Yoo and others, believes that they can ignore the Constitution whenever they want and they intend on doing so to build this pointless wall.

Of course, this is hardly the first time that Bush has ignored the Constitution. Moreover, it's a reminder of the Constitution's fragility. Any study of U.S. history, particularly racial or labor history, shows that we have a long history of upholding the Constitution only when we find it convenient. Think of Andrew Jackson ignoring the Supreme Court over Cherokee removal. Think of Rutherford Hayes and Grover Cleveland calling out federal troops to suppress strikes. Think of Woodrow Wilson and the first Red Scare. And of course, there's Richard Nixon.

Even presidents who I respect have often not respected the Constitution. Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War was unfortunate, though perhaps necessary given the situation. And Franklin Roosevelt's issue of Executive Order 8803, creating the Japanese concentration camps, is a sad mark on U.S. history.

This doesn't even get into how local governments, law enforcement, and even the Supreme Court has ignored the Constitution when they don't agree with it. The long-term violation of civil rights of African-Americans is the most notorious example, but the suppression of labor struggles or just people who local communities didn't like has happened throughout U.S. history. Maybe the worst example is the Gilded Age Supreme Court. In 1896, not only did the Court rule in Plessy v. Ferguson, which for all intent and purpose flushed the 14th Amendment down the toilet, it also ruled in Ward v. Race Horse that legal precedents concerning Native American rights to the land were "wholly immaterial" because national glory now demanding white domination of the land. This is nothing more than Supreme Court members codifying their own prejudice.

What is different today is a wider spread belief in civil rights and the sanctity of the Constitution. So there are powerful groups suing the federal government over their disturbing unconstitutionality. But still, most Americans may not care, particularly when the move is so obviously to maintain the nation's whiteness in the guise of anti-terrorism. While the Constitution should be the law in this nation, it has usually operated as an ideal that must be constantly fought for. Too often those on the side of law and civil rights have lost. I'm hardly more optimistic about the outcome of this situation.

Historical Image of the Day

Wounded soldiers after Battle of Chancellorsville, outside Fredericksburg, Virginia, May 2, 1863

More Border Fence Stupidity

Again, the border fence is a terrible idea.

This story discusses how the Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville is basically going to end up in Mexico since the wall will be built north of it. Let me reiterate, this wall is going to do NOTHING to stop illegal immigration. And yet again, I'll say that most people on the border oppose the wall because they know that it is completely worthless. By all accounts, this is a very neat place in a very poor area. I will be visiting this area on Memorial Day weekend and I plan on going to Sabal Palm. I might as well see it while it is of value for conservation.

It's also worth noting that poor people in this country have almost no access to natural places. This border fence is not only an environmental disaster, but of course, it is also a structure of racism. Moreover, it is an example of environmental injustice, as it clearly prioritizes the desire of white people in Nebraska to feel that this is still a white country over the actual needs of local residents to experience something other than a degraded urban nature.

To top it off, it's not even necessary to build a fence in this area. As the article states:

A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.

Of all the stupid ideas of the Bush Administration, the border fence may actually be the stupidest. And that is really saying something.

McCain the Jerk

It is incidents like this that make it hard for me to believe that the Democrats will lose the presidential election:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

This is pretty horrible and extreme. But John McCain is a complete asshole and everyone who has interacted with him knows it. The chances of him going through the entire campaign without some kind of damaging blowup seems slim.

Historical Image of the Day

Anti-Freedman's Bureau poster, Reconstruction Era, probably 1866 or 1867.

The Duality of the Southern Thing

When Patterson Hood from the Drive-By Truckers talks about "the duality of the southern thing," what precisely do you think he is talking about? What exactly is this duality? Can it be defined? Hood doesn't really define it. I think I know what he's talking about but I'm not sure I could define it either.

Film Review--The Rabbit Is Me (1965)

Of all the European countries that built successful film industries, I know least about East German film. It had never really crossed my mind at all that there was an industry there at all but, of course, considering the Soviet influence this should have been obvious to me. Clearly, few of these films were ever seen in America until the wall fell and few were picked up by video distributors until more recently. A couple of years ago, Erik had mentioned a number of East German westerns being released on DVD, and I vowed to see them (though I still never have). Since then, more and more of these films have come available and, just last week, First Run Features has released two of these films from the early ‘60s, including The Rabbit Is Me from 1965, banned for its pointed attacks against the East German judicial system and it’s generally stylistic presentation (it has always been crazy to me the abhorance of style over function in post-Lenin Soviet film, as if the early Soviets didn’t have the huge hand in the progression of lighting, cinematography, and poetic representation in film that they clearly had). The short story of the film’s banning, however, has less to do with its actual content than the timing of its production. According to director Kurt Maetzig, he had a personal discussion with Nikita Khrushchev regarding the current state of Communist film and the Soviet Premier’s feelings were annoyance the art had become entrenched in dogma and had not progressed in thirty years. Resulting from his opinion, an entire year of films, including this one, went into production for the DEFA (East Germany’s film association). Great as this may have been for the German filmmakers, Khrushchev was ousted toward the end of ’64 and Brezhnev, with his hardline stance, came into power and promptly banned an entire years’ worth of DEFA productions, including Rabbit. Thankfully, these are now becoming available to world audiences, and this is my first experience with them. I received the film for review on DVD Verdict and, scandalously, will post this review before it goes on the site (shhh….)

The Rabbit Is Me is a great film, plain and simple. I came into it with an open mind, wanting to like it, but I had no idea what I was in for. Stylistically reminiscent of the French New Wave, Maetzig uses internal monologue and a palpable realism to tell its relatively simple story. Maria (Angelika Waller) is a simple orphan set to enter college. She is blackballed from attending, however, when her brother is arrested for ambiguous subversive activity. She doesn’t believe that he would do such a thing and is vigilant in filing appeals for a retrial. After filing one of these appeals, a man stops her outside the courthouse and asks her out. When he introduces himself, though, Maria realizes that this is the judge who convicted her brother. Now, with self-interest and her sense of justice in mind, Maria becomes his mistress and, unfortunately for her, they fall in love. Through this love, though, she pries into the inner workings of the justice system and realizes the corruption and utter dismissal of justice in East Germany’s courts. She loves the judge, this is clear. She’s even willing to accept that he’s married, but is so confused by his focus on self-interest that she cannot resolve her conflict. In response, she begins working in her own interests herself. When both the power structure and the citizens are working in this way, idealized Communism is destroyed and we are left with the reality of mid-‘60s East Germany: a bureaucratic mess with no justice and no honor, ready to collapse in on itself.

All of this is beautifully rendered in repeating motifs and musical cues. The audience is lulled to sleep to be shocked when the pattern changes. It’s an effective structure that works wonders with Angelika Walter’s steely, intelligent performance. She is a rock of a person, ready to act at a moment’s notice in her brother’s defense. But, in the end, her real aim is to attend university, and all her machinations in her brother’s name are toward her own ends. This doesn’t make her dishonorable; she is honest with herself in a society where nobody else is. When everything comes down and I sat alone watching the final images roll, I couldn’t help myself from cheering and clapping at the outcome.

On a side note, the title of the film comes from an altercation in which Maria meets the judge’s wife. In an internal monologue, Maria prepares to die. In a stylistic shocker, the actors all stop in their tracks. This is not a still picture, but all the actors in the scene are still. Wind blows and hair moves in the breeze, but the surreal positions of the actors remain. And it holds. And it holds. And then everything returns to normal and life resumes as new. It is a shocking scene in its unexpectedness and in its beauty. This scene drives the remainder of the film and is, simply, amazing.

See The Rabbit Is Me, and see it as soon as you can. This is a forgotten masterpiece, not just of Communist film, but of world film in general. See this movie!

Lyrad's Occasional Image

The premier edition of Lyrad's Occasional Image, which is a much more realistic title for me than any "...of the day."

Chairs designed by H.R. Geiger...comfy

No Such Thing

CNN and Sunset magainze offers us 10 "earth-friendly spring flings." Uh, there's no such thing. Flying to California or Hawaii is incredibly damaging to the environment.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm not going to do it. I will sacrifice a hell of a lot. It will take a lot though for me not to travel. But can we at least be honest. Flying to California and then renting a car to drive around is not earth friendly, even the wines are organic. Really, the organic thing is far less important than the fuel consumption.

Meanwhile, the trip to Park City is green because you can take the shuttle up there from Salt Lake City. Big whoopdie do.

Chuck

Heston is dead.
Hard to know what to make of Heston the actor. Certainly his politics can be easily dismissed. Like many of the uber-masculine stars of post-war cinema, most of his work didn't age well. Heston really couldn't act, but he sure as hell could overact. I can't think of a single film of his that I really want to see, or see again. "Major Dundee" is about as close as it gets, but that's for Peckinpah, not Heston. Yet many people seem to respect his work. I'm not sure why.

However, he did play Andrew Jackson twice in movies, in "The President's Lady" and "The Buccaneer," neither of which I have ever heard of before.

Heston should have been on my death list.

Greensburg

Last May, a tornado completely destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas. One known for having the world's largest hand-dug well, it briefly became known for being a site of utter chaos. Last June, I was driving from Denver to Texas on back roads. By sheer coincidence I drove through Greensburg. It was one of the most shocking things I had ever seen. The city was gone. A few of the old brick Victorian Era buildings were sort of standing. Then, like a line was drawn through the eastern side of the town, everything was standing, as if nothing had ever happened. Remarkable. I thought about taking pictures but I felt it was immoral to be a tourist in someone's space of suffering.

I did have to wonder about the future of a destroyed town in western Kansas. The western Plains have been losing population for 90 years now. Greensburg isn't on the interstate. There's no real reason for people to move back there. It's a county seat but that's about the biggest economic engine in the area from what I can tell.

But Greensburg is rebuilding. What's more, it is doing so in an environmentally friendly way. I'm surprised that a small Kansas town is taking such a radical step, but as the linked article suggests, this is an opportunity to rejuvenate the town based upon the independence that locally created wind energy can provide. That they are moving into LEED certified buildings and connecting the region's farms to an environmentally based economy is even more surprising and suggests that forced into a crisis, even leaders in the nation's most conservative areas can think creatively about environmental issues.

It's a fascinating story and perhaps a model for keeping people on the Plains.

America's Third World

This story on the Navajo nation losing their internet service is another sad reminder about just how awful conditions are on many of the nation's reservations.

Indian reservations have mostly chosen one of two paths in the last 20 years--gaming or not. For those who have taken up gaming, they are bringing in serious money for the first time ever. But it is often at the cost of radically changing their culture. You don't see nations giving up gaming after embracing it, so these are changes that as a whole, many peoples are willing to make. But the success of the casinos tends to rely on two things--population and geography. Smaller tribes have done better than the larger nations. The money is split up among far fewer people for one thing. But the smaller peoples, who were mostly more sedentary to being with, tend to live in places near large American cities. So the New England and Puget Sound tribes have become incredibly rich. There aren't that many people to begin with and an insatiable demand for gambling among millions of local whites. Within New Mexico, Sandia and Isleta Pueblos have done outstanding because they are right outside of Albuquerque. The Jicarilla Apache reservation, in northwestern New Mexico, not so much. They have a casino, but it is so far out of the way that almost no one goes there.

For those who have not embraced gambling, like the Navajo or Lakota, poverty remains deeply entrenched, though with the positive consequence of isolating the many problems with gambling from those peoples. While I believe the Navajo are building a casino on the edge of the reservation, it is unlikely to bring untold riches due to its location. Meanwhile, tribal government is as corrupt as ever, as seen in the bidding for the internet contract. Driving on the Navajo or Pine Ridge reservations is pretty amazing. Not only do you not feel you are in the United States, you don't even feel like you're in Mexico. It feels far poorer than that.

This begs a question--what responsibility do we as a people have to Native Americans? Is giving them the opportunity to open casinos enough? Or should we as a nation provide basic services to these people? For instance, over 1/3 of Navajo homes do not have electricity. Shouldn't the U.S. government simply provide this at no cost. This fact is especially galling considering that a huge amount of electricity is creating on the reservation itself. Shouldn't we also provide them with decent schools, clean water, and internet service?

These questions may not be as easy to answer as you think. We can't overemphasize the problem with corruption. I'm not sure that tribal elites would want all these services provided unless they could control the distribution and profits. I'm not sure how to handle this problem.

But I am convinced that we as a society do owe native peoples some serious recompense for the suffering they received at our hands. This can be done in a smart way too. Think about it as a GI Bill for Native Americans. The GI Bill was transformative because it gave veterans services rather than cash pensions. It changed the structure of society. Providing Native Americans services like the internet seems the least we can do.

Historical Image of the Day

Man, baby, and car. Visalia, California, 1926

Lyrad's Random 10

There's obviously no reason to explain who Jello Biafra is. If you don't know, you have my sympathies. Anyway, he's no stranger to collaboration. His albums with Al Jorgensen as Lard, "Prairie Home Invasion" with Mojo Nixon, "Tumor Circus" with Steel Pole Bathtub, and "Never Breathe What You Can't See" with The Melvins are all great stuff. This rework of "Kali-Fornia Über Alles" is from the second collaboration with The Melvins, "Seig Howdy!" (great title), a collection of cuts that didn't make the first album and some remixes. The lyrics are reworked to start with the California recall election putting Schwarzenegger into power and moves on from there stream of consciousness. As usual, it's both hilarious and true, though a little bit over the top (and, though I love what he sings, I'm really not much for his voice, but that's not really his point). Some choice lines from the song: "I'm Governor Schwarzeneger/Pretty soon I'll be dictator," "Steroids for the master race," "It's the Homeland Security police/You're a terrorist and so is your niece." Good stuff, plus it has sludgy Melvins business behind it; how could I possibly argue.

1. Jello Biafra w/The Melvins--Kali-Fornia Über Alles 21st Century
2. Kid Ory--Dippermouth Blues
3. Fabio Frizzi--Main Title (from the soundtrack to Zombie)
4. Neurosis--Training
5. Blind Willie Johnson--Church, I'm Fully Saved Today
6. John Jacobsson--Pieces (3) for Clarinet, Viola & Piano; 2. Lyriskt Intermezzo (James M. Hinson, Cl, Christine Hinson, Va, Linda Perry, Pn.)
7. Sergei Prokofiev--Philosophers for Chorus & Orchestra (New Philharmonia Orchestra of St. Petersburg [conductor and choir unknown])
8. T.Rex--All My Love
9. Ween--Hippy Smell
10. Mandrill--Road to Love

Help Chris Gaffney

Lyrad and I are both huge fans of the Hacienda Brothers. Lyrad's review of their show in Denton last year elicited a comment from one of the band members. I saw them a couple of days later and they were absolutely fantastic.

Sadly, their lead singer, the great Chris Gaffney, has severe liver cancer. He will be on intensive chemo for the rest of the year. I don't know what that means, but I suspect it is pretty grim.

I don't usually do these things, but I want to encourage readers to donate a little bit to Gaffney. He needs about $60,000 to cover what his insurance won't. They have about $20K now, so word is getting out.

Gaffney and the Hacienda Brothers are one of the 5 best bands in America today. Their combination of country and soul is amazing. If you haven't heard them, go to the i-tunes or whatever you use. Buy "Cowboys to Girls" off their latest album, What's Wrong With Right and then buy "Mental Revenge" off their self-titled debut. If you like those songs, buy the albums and then donate a bit of money to Gaffney's cancer treatment. I'm giving $25.

If you don't like those songs, you probably don't have good taste in music.

Historical Image of the Day

Georgia Governor Lester Maddox and son "escorting" a black man out of a restaurant.

Shorter Glenn Beck: "I Love Evil"

Glenn Beck's love letter to big oil/hating on Al Gore is pretty damned laughable. Why does he have his show again?

We all want to live in a world that's clean, healthy and prosperous.

We all want to hand that world off to our children in slightly better shape than we received it. No one, even the supposedly evil oil executive, has any reason to want anything different. But, for some reason, we find ourselves searching for villains. Surely they exist, but the endless quest to create them sometimes overwhelms our better judgment, whether intentional or not.

Congress has picked "Big Oil" as their enemy of the week. These companies inexplicably put profits above people, ravaging the environment and financially assaulting the poor to put another couple of dollars on their balance sheet. That's the storyline we've all been taught.

Yes, times are tough for many. Sure, oil companies make a lot of cash. But, for that money, they get us to work, get ambulances to the hospital, keep our homes warm, and employ thousands of our friends and neighbors while financing their retirement, paying their health care, and providing energy to millions. Because of capitalism, they have the incentive to do that. I've yet to see what our government does for us with their rather large chunk of each gallon of gas we buy, and I've yet to see them offer to return it or suggest a gas-tax-windfall-tax-tax.

Thanks to my time machine, I can place Glenn Beck in the past. What would he say?

Glenn Beck, 1870: "Sure, the Ku Klux Klan goes a little far with their killing. But, for that killing, we get to fight against miscegenation, keep Uncle in his place, and ensure that America will always be a white man's country."

Glenn Beck, 1892: "Sure, the Pinkerton Agency is making a lot of money for their wanton beating of strikers at Homestead. But, for that money, they make sure that anarchist scum don't get to eat properly. They also ensure continued poverty for workers, thus forcing their daughters into prostitution. I don't want to have pay for than 50 cents for a hooker, do you? I don't see the government, with all that money they make on the tariff, ensuring cheap hookers for you and I. I have yet to see them offer to distribute that tariff money to you and me so we can pay for those more pricey 14 year old Jewesses."

Glenn Beck, 1925. "Sure, Madison Grant made a lot of money when he published The Passing of the Great Race. And maybe he goes a little far in his discussion of race suicide. But I don't see the government doing enough to keep the Jewish menace out of our nation. Thanks to Grant and others of his ilk, the Jews can stay in Europe, where they are sure to be safe for the foreseeable future."

My time machine totally rules.

Mister Trend's Random 10

"Alphabet Pony" is off the Kills' new album, Midnight Boom. I loved the Kills' raw, sexual primitivism on their previous two albums, but wondered how long they could make it last. They still have a raw sexiness that is all too rare in rock today on the new album, but they really branch out their sound, and singer W's voice has definitely gained more emotion (including a mournful cooing on "Black Balloon," and a really fun list of declarations of what different things used to be on "What New York Used to Be"). Alphabet Pony is a concise, rowdy rocker more in step with the first two albums (Keep on Your Mean Side, and No Wow), but it doesn't sound redundant, and is just one highlight from an album that's top-notch and fun from top to bottom. Midnight Boom is definitely my early leader for "album of 2008," and I highly, highly recommend it (and their other 2 albums, if you haven't heard them).

1. "Carro de Boi" - Milton Nascimento
2. "Wasted State of Mind" - ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
3. "Etude IV" - Philip Glass
4. "Impressions" - John Coltrane
5. "What It Means" - Mates of State
6. "Pressure Zone" - Beck
7. "Alphabet Pony" - The Kills
8. "Schunkel" - Mouse on Mars
9. Symphony No. 4 in F. Minor, Op. 36 - II. Andantino in modo di canzona - Peter Tchaikovsky
10. "Guilty" - The Bad Plus

John McCain's Brazilian Hookup?

This has a taste of extreme salaciousness to me, and I'm a little skeptical as to how true it is (though McCain certainly was a philanderer). Still, juicy reports of McCain hooking up with a Brazilian woman 50 years ago when coming in to port are rather....interesting. So let me recommend this for its humor/gross-out content, rather than as a real news item (though if it turns into real news, that will be even funnier/grosser).

Erik's Random 10

I guess this means I am back on the blog full time. It's like meth. I just can't break the habit.

I can't say enough about the awesomeness of Hazel Dickens. This West Virginia bluegrass singer was not only a pioneering female in this most misogynist music form, but she also has sung some of the most heart-wrenching political songs ever. She left West Virginia for Washington DC as a young girl. She joined a band with the folk singer Alice Gerard and they produced some fantastic albums (I'd recommend the collection Pioneering Women of Bluegrass, one of the 5 best bluegrass albums ever produced). In the late 1970s and 1980s, Dickens then put out a series of fantastic solo albums that combined political songs about coal mining ("Little Lenaldo," "Coal Tattoo") and women's rights ("Don't Put Her Down, You Put Her There") with more traditional bluegrass topics about heartbreak and loss. "Don't Bother to Cry" is one of those more traditional numbers. I also recommend the collection from her solo work on Rounder, A Few Old Memories. Those are 20 great songs on that album, let me tell you.

Some of you might remember her from the John Sayles film Matewan, where she sang at the funeral. She was singing in the old-time style which some have trouble listening to, but it's definitely from the heart. Her recorded work has a much more contemporary style though.

Dickens is older now and doesn't perform much. It has been several years since she put out an album. I suppose that I probably won't ever get the chance to see her. But she is absolutely amazing.

1. Hazel Dickens, Don't Bother to Cry
2. John Hartford, Gum Tree Canoe
3. Frank Sinatra, When Your Lover Has Gone
4. Tom Russell, La Frontera
5. Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time, Heartbreak Hurricane
6. The Kevins, Soft Words
7. The Magnetic Fields, Parades Go By
9. IIIrd Tyme Out, Dim Lights, Thick Smoke
10. Waylon Jennings, It's Not Supposed to Be That Way

Weird Situation--Advice Needed

So I get home from my office at like 9;45. Yeah, I know, it's all fun times as a young professor.

Anyway, like 5 minutes after I get home, someone knocks on my door. I live in a house split into 4 apartments so I knew it was one of my neighbors. I figured it was my neighbors who live across the hall--a preacher and his wife. Uh, no. It's the woman who moved in above me a couple of months ago. She is really really drunk. So I invite her in and figure that I need to be nice here and also take care of the drunk person. I give her a glass of water and start talking to her. OK, whatever.

At this point, I should note that this is the most exciting thing that has happened in my life since I moved to Georgetown, Texas, which may something about the town or may something about me. Probably a little of both.

Turns out that her husband is in the military or something and is away for a few months. She's clearly lonely as hell as he's only been gone a few days. And she's pretty nice too I guess and I always want good neighbor relations. Mostly I don't want her to pass out in my place. Anyway, then she starts worrying because she can't find her keys. She thinks she locked herself out of her place. And she clearly needs help getting up the stairs. And she clearly wants another drink. I resist this, but I help her up. I'm trying to talk her into going to bed. She did have a nice little rabbit that I petted a bit. But I'm a sucker for fluffy pets as anyone who has met my cat knows. Anyway, I digress. This post is clearly like my classes where I can't go for more than 2 minutes without launching into some story.

She says she wants to drink as much as she can. Who am I to stop her? It's her life and besides, she's obviously dealing with some shit. Finally, she passes out over the sink for Christ's sake. So I grab her and try to get her to her bed. She collapses at the edge of it.

I call a female friend of mine and ask what the heck to do. I want to have good neighbor relations. Hell, I wouldn't mind hanging out with her some--again, she seems nice enough and I have this sort of utopian belief about neighbors creating a community. I'm kind of worried about her. My friend suggests I go up, blow out all the candles she has going, lock her door, and then get out of there. This is clearly good advice. I couldn't have slept with the candles still going since I am totally OCD in that way. Well, in a lot of ways, but that's for another post. I did just what my friend suggested. I also peeked in on her, making sure she wasn't choking on her own vomit. She had moved toward the bathroom some but had passed out again. She seemed fine sort of I guess.

Did I do the right thing? I'm thinking of knocking on her door tomorrow night and checking on her. I'm sure she'll be embarrassed, but I don't really want her to be. Do you all think talking to her would help get over this? Plus, there's the whole male-female thing and I don't want to be accused of being inappropriate. I don't think I've ever been accused of that, but there's a first time for everything I guess. I just don't want it to be here.

I'm not used to these kind of situations. I'm more comfortable hanging out in my office and writing about the past. Actual human relations are much harder, especially tricky situations like this.

Historical Image of the Day

Smokey the Bear wallet, 1960s.

Note 1: I know it's supposed to be Smokey Bear but I don't want to hear it. My ex-wife used to get angry when people said Smokey the Bear which only made me call him that on principle.

Note 2: By all accounts, the actual bear that became Smokey was a mean, mean bear that used to try and bite people.

Also, thanks to Lyrad for posting all the historical images. While I am probably more or less ready to start posting them again, he should feel free to continue doing it at his leisure. There is certainly nothing wrong with 2 Historical Images of the Day.

Bad Advice on Tornadoes

A student of mine just wrote a paper on the 1979 Wichita Falls tornado. She discovered that prior to this tornado, researchers recommended to people in their homes to open their windows during a tornado. I'm not sure exactly why this was the case but this advice was evidently widely followed and led to several of the 43 deaths in the storm when the wind got in the house and tore the roofs off. I should go read the article she cites on this to see just why.

Huh.

Obama the Smoker

Swopa at Needlenose reports on some of the worst journalism of the campaign so far. Jake Tapper of ABC News is angry that Obama claims to have stopped smoking when Tapper believes he has reeked of smoke.

The horror!

Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol. We chatted for a second. . . .

. . . As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of smell and immediately I smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes.

Obama ran off before I could ask him if he'd just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign. They denied it. He'd quit months before, in February, they insisted. . . . But I knew what I'd smelled and I asked his campaign to double-check and to ask him if he'd had a cigarette.

They reported back that he had told them he hadn't had a cigarette since he quit. . . .

Except…. last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not been entirely successful.

“I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it, and then was able to get back on," he said."But it is a struggle like everything else.”

Now I wonder about last August.

It's not a big deal in the scheme of things -- the war on Iraq, a major economic crisis -- indeed, it's miniscule. Hardly worth mentioning.

Except that I don't like feeling that I wasn't being dealt with honestly. And as much as citizens who are suspect of the media might scoff at such a notion, many of us consider ourselves to be your representatives to help make sure our leaders are telling us the truth, and leading the country down a path we're confident is the right one. (Corny, I know.)

Who gives a flying fuck if Obama smokes or not? Why does this matter? What a hack. I can already see the Republican ads--"How can we trust Obama to protect our children. He is a smoker!!!"

Disgusting piece of "journalism."

Morricone & Ukuleles

I've heard Morricone performed on a lot of instruments. Solo voice, full orchestra, '80s rock band, turntables, etc., but never a ukulele orchestra...until now. Enjoy

RIP - Klaus Dinger

Although it apparently happened almost 2 weeks ago, only today did Klaus Dinger's death become public. Dinger was a drummer who recorded with Kraftwerk and was one of the two founding members of Neu! Kraftwerk has gotten a fair amount of praise, but I always liked Neu! more. To me, they were a little like the Velvet Underground, in the sense that Neu!'s production was slight (3 full-lengths in the 70s), yet their influence in the music world is huge (Sonic Youth, for example, wore their love of Neu! on their sleeves). The biggest difference now is that lots of people know and revere the Velvet Underground while Neu! remains an extremely underrated band. And the music is just great, thanks in no small part to Dinger's drumming - the Brian Eno quote in the article cited is pretty much dead on about beats in the 70s. At 61 years old, Dinger's death is a surprise, and marks a very real loss in the music world.

Historical Image of the Day

Ladies' Night at the Handlebar Club. London, 1962

Growing Tensions over Spain's Treatment of Brazilians

In early March, tensions between Brazil and Spain flared up over tourism. It began with Spain's sudden refusal to admit 452 Brazilians into the country at Madrid's airport in February. Brazil has a system of reciprocity in terms of visas and tourism; hence, if you live in the U.S., you pay $110 for a tourist visa to Brazil because the U.S. makes Brazilians pay the same to try to obtain a tourist visa to the U.S.* (and if you don't like that, call your local congressman/woman and senator to complain about the U.S.'s policy). Since Spain had begun turning away Brazilian tourists, in early March, Brazil turned away 8 Spaniards for "irregular papers" (which appears to have been the case - Brazil has been trying to crack down on European sex tourism for some time, and part of that crackdown has been an insistence on having your papers in order. (And that's not to say the 8 Spaniards expelled were sex tourists.)

*(Even so, the reciprocity is not complete, because Americans applying for a tourist visa to Brazil are almost guaranteed to get it, and do not have to go through an interview. Brazilians, on the other hand, have to be interviewed at one of the American consulates in Brazil, and if you are refused the visa, you don't even get your $110 back).

Last week, Foreign Policy Blogs had a post up contextualizing the situation a bit more. I think its generally right about Brazil's historical acceptance of immigrants, and Brazilian emigration has been on the rise in the last 40 years or so. I think the one weakness in the post's article, though, is the implicit presumption that the Brazilians who Spain turned away were part of this wave of illegal immigrants. Many of those turned away from Spain in February were middle- and upper-middle class tourists and professionals who were traveling to Spain either for professional duties like international congresses, or to sightsee and escape Brazil during Carnaval (not everybody loves Carnaval, after all).

I understand that Spain may be struggling with illegal immigration, but that in no way excuses Spain's terrible treatment of those who were detained, where Brazilians were "'treated like dogs,' and complained of being held for several days in crowded rooms, receiving insults and bad treatment, or being left for hours without any information about their status, and without food and water or access to their luggage." Compared to this treatment of Brazilians, and the fact that Brazil politely and expediently turned away 8 (and not 452) Spaniards seems more than fair. If Spain really is concerned about illegal immigration, from Brazilians or anybody else, that's within its rights, but there are better and more productive ways to deal with the issue than to just turn away people en masse from the airports, which solves nothing and just leads to diplomatic tensions and travel boycotts from Brazil (I actually knew 2 people who cancelled their trips to Spain to boycott the treatment of Brazilians).

As the post points out, it is essential that both Brazil and Spain work together on this. Spain needs to deal with people more professionally and humanely, be they illegal immigrants or legal tourists. And the possibility of brain-drain as Brazil's talented scientists and businesspeople leave is a threat, though not as great as it was years ago, given how well Brazil's economy is doing and how the government is giving incentive to public university graduates to stay in Brazil.
Still, it's good that both sides sat down last week to start discussing this, and hopefully things will improve, particularly for those Brazilians traveling to Spain legally.

Just a Reminder Why Opening Day Is So Great...

....because, for one day at least, teams like Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Seattle, and Tampa Bay (alone) are in first place.