This Has Been Tried Before

Charles Krauthammer:

Maliki & Co. are afraid we are arming Sunnis for the civil war to come. On the other hand, we might be creating a rough balance of forces that would act as a deterrent to all-out civil war and encourage a relatively peaceful accommodation.

Blackadder Goes Forth :

Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent a war in Europe, two super blocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast, opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war.

Baldrick: Except, well, this is sort of a war, isn't it?

Blackadder: That's right, there was one tiny flaw in the plan.

George: Oh, what was that?

Blackadder: It was bollocks.

UAW & The Big Three

This week, the United Auto Workers start negotiations with the Big Three automakers. By all accounts, the UAW are expected to offer massive concessions to help the Big Three survive.

Yet again, working class people are expected to suffer all the burdens of American economic choices. Among the expected declines--a pay cut of $25-30 an hour. That is a huge amount. Now auto workers are decently paid, although this story severely overinflates how much the average auto worker makes. But a decline of that much! And for what? If these cuts succeed (highly unlikely), will workers see their wages rise to match the profits? Of course not!!!

UAW president Ron Gettelfinger is probably not the man for the job. He is known as a business-first leader who has a long history of caving in to company demands. He will do so here as well. As a UAW member said on All Things Considered this evening, why even have a union if they are going to cave like this. That is a great question. What's the point anymore? This is a big part of why unions collapsed in this country. All too often, they do very little for their average members. Even though there are unseen benefits, like representation and the (increasingly limited) protection of a contract, unions also need to fight for workers when it is time. Gettelfinger has never shown any sign of doing this.

One might rightfully say that the Big Three are in serious financial trouble. That's true, no doubt. But what do companies give back to workers for these concessions? Nothing. If companies want major concessions, they need to give more than just letting them keep their jobs until they demand yet more concessions and eventually move all the factories to Honduras anyway. Give workers seats on the board. Ensure in the contract that increased profits will lead to rollbacks of concessions, or free company stock, or some real tangible benefit. Guarantee that any new jobs at factories set up to save money, whether in the US South, Mexico, China, or where ever, will be union jobs that the UAW can organize with company approval. Something real so that workers know that they might be screwed now, but at least the companies aren't trying to screw them forever. Of course, this will never happen because the companies ARE screwing over workers.

It is too bad that so many unions are still in bed with big business after all these years of talking about reform.

Hey Glaciers!!! You Suck!!!

I just wanted to say how proud I am that my plan to defeat glaciers is working so well.

Glaciers are disappearing around the world at incredibly rapid rates. This can only be seen as an unadulterated good for humanity. That ice kept getting in the way of me climbing mountains. Plus, I've always had a dream for hitting golf balls off Mt. Kilimanjaro. Soon, my wish can be a reality.

Declining glaciers also help American interests abroad. Sure, we are losing our glaciers too. But who cares. God is on our side. He'll find water sources for us. But look at a place like Bolivia. Those idolatrous Catholics are losing their glaciers. Soon, they will be begging for our vengeful Protestant God to give them water. This all helps take out our greatest rival for economic and social control over South America. They may claim they are the poorest nation in South America. But it's just the hypnotic flutes they play. In fact, they are poised to attack the United States at any minute. In fact, I heard they have made a deal with Al-Qaeda to allow the terrorists access for a staging ground in exchange for a large enough supply of Evo Morales' sweaters to get through a Pakistani winter.

And look at China. The Yellow Menace is already undermining U.S. independence while drugging us with cheap, cheap consumer goods. But those Commies are about to lose all their water too with the melting of the Himalayan glaciers. Good. Now U.S. dominance can again prevail over darkest Asia.

Sure, all of this means some animals die. But who cares. Doesn't a Queen Latifah narrated movie about polar bears means the terrorists are already winning?

Historical Image of the Day

Hippies, late 1960s

BaconSalt

How absolutely wonderful.

Heads, He Wins; Tails, We Lose

While reinforcing my point from last week about Muqtada al-Sadr's significance in Iraqi politics, the deep roots of his movement, and the utter folly of attempting to stand up a government which doesn't accomodate it, this article in today's NY Times also sheds some light on Muqtada's "insider/outsider" strategy:

After months of lying low, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has re-emerged with a shrewd strategy that reaches out to Iraqis on the street while distancing himself from the increasingly unpopular government.

Mr. Sadr and his political allies have largely disengaged from government, contributing to the political paralysis noted in a White House report last week. That outsider status has enhanced Mr. Sadr’s appeal to Iraqis, who consider politics less and less relevant to their daily lives.

Mr. Sadr has been working tirelessly to build support at the grass-roots level, opening storefront offices across Baghdad and southern Iraq that dispense services that are not being provided by the government. In this he seems to be following the model established by Hezbollah, the radical Lebanese Shiite group, as well as Hamas in Gaza, with entwined social and military wings that serve as a parallel government.
...

The Sadrists exhibit a quiet confidence, and are pulling ever more supporters into their ranks. “The Sadr movement cannot be marginalized; it is the popular base,” said Sheik Salah al-Obaidi, the chief spokesman and a senior strategist for Mr. Sadr’s movement in Najaf. “We will not be affected by efforts to push us to one side because we are the people. We feel the people’s day-to-day sufferings.”

A number of working-class Shiites reflected that sentiment in conversations about the Mahdi militia and Mr. Sadr. Their relatives and neighbors work both for the Sadr offices and for the militia, blurring the line between social programs and paramilitary activity.

Mr. Sadr’s offices are accessible storefronts that dispense a little bit of everything: food, money, clothes, medicine and information. From just one office in Baghdad and one in Najaf in 2003, the Sadr operation has ballooned. It now has full-service offices in most provinces and nine in Baghdad, as well as several additional storefront centers. In some neighborhoods, the militiamen come around once a month to charge a nominal fee — about 5,000 Iraqi dinars, or $4 — for protection. In others, they control the fuel supply, and in some, where sectarian killings have gone on, they control the real estate market for empty houses.

Sadr essentially has the best of both worlds here. His staunch and consistent opposition to the U.S. presence and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, and the confrontational stance which the U.S. continues to take toward him, allows him to credibly criticize the failure of the government to deliver services and security. At the same time, his loyalists' control of the Health and Transportation ministries provides access to government funds and resources, which can then be distributed as patronage and charity under the banner of his movement. Clever.

Arafat, AIDS and the Clown Choir

The various bozos of the wingnut circus have had their little chortle about the rumor of Yasser Arafat's having died of AIDS (much like their sporadic concern for women's rights, wingers care deeply about homophobia if and when it can be used as a weapon against their political enemies), but leave it to Marty Peretz's Mini Me to go the extra mile and try to spin the story into a slander of the Palestinians in general. I give you James Kirchick:

Of course, no amount of evidence will convince the Palestinians that Arafat was a homosexual, or that his death was caused by anything other than Israel's machinations. I found this out a few weeks ago in the West Bank, where everyone I spoke to told me that Israel killed Arafat. The denials that will inevitably spill forth about the causes of Arafat's death will mirror the rejection of a two state solution: both are part and parcel of the Palestinians' self-delusion.

Yes, those silly, delusional Palestinians. It's amazing how people whose leaders have been assassinated by Israeli bullets, missiles, bombs in telephones, poisoning, and secret lethal injection ambush will believe any damn thing. Sure, Ariel Sharon had openly declared Israel's right to kill Arafat if Israel so desired, but to actually suspect Israel of having gone through with it? That's just another example of the conspiratorial anti-Semitism which infects Palestinian society. As for the Palestinian's "rejection of a two state solution," given the fact that a substantial majority of Palestinians have for over a decade been in favor of just that, I suggest that the thing that's actually mirrored here is James Kirchick's bigotry.

Rumours about Arafat's homosexuality have been around for a long time. A number of Israeli scholars I've spoken to over the years, as well as a few Palestinians, simply acknowledged it as fact. Obviously, if true, it would be very interesting to consider how this was kept secret, or at least mostly secret, for so long. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that quite a few people knew about it, but said nothing or ignored it because they considered Arafat's leadership indispensible.

To be sure, this particular story has a suspicious provenance. To say that I was initially wary of something that I first saw posted on the Corner after it had been picked up from Little Green Footballs is like saying I would be wary of eating a ring-ding that I first saw on the floor of the Newark bus station men's room after it had been transported through customs between Bill O'Reilly's ass cheeks. Ahmad Jibril, who apparently floated the rumor in an al-Manar TV interview translated by the hatefully anti-Palestinian MEMRI, and linked by LGF, is the head of the rejectionist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, a longtime rival of Fatah's, currently based in Damascus. It's easy to see why he might want to slander and discredit Arafat, and by extension the current Fatah leadership, by outing Arafat as having been "infected." That's not to say that the story isn't true, just that not one of the links in the chain is a source that I consider particularly, or even nearly, credible.

Thoughts on the Brazil Air Tragedy in Sao Paulo

The sadness of this is beyond belief, for certain. Flags here in Brasilia (including other nations' flags at hotels) are at half-staff, and the country is shocked at what is now its worst air disaster in history. Unfortunately, the sadness is only heightened by a number of factors.

-Reports at this moment in both the US and in Brazil (which can and will change at least somewhat as the investigation goes on) say that the pilot was unable to land and tried to take off again, slamming into the building. No word (and probably not for weeks) what combination of pilot error (if any), airplane malfunction (if any), and weather played.

-Regardless of whether this was pilot error or what, the fact that Congonhas airport (the domestic airport in Sao Paulo) continues operating is absolutely inexcusable. Pilots have been complaining about the runway since the 1980s, with the runways being closed last year (aiding to slowdowns in Brazil) to resurface them. In this regard, every president from that point to yesterday deserves blame for ignoring the problem. Lula at least initiated runway improvements recently. However, whether it was his decision or somebody else's, the runways were opened before resurfacing was finished. The grooves in the runways that help traction and drainage of rain had not yet been finished, yet the airport was still running in the name of "business". There is no good excuse for this, period. If the runways aren't ready, you do not fly, it does not matter if your company will lose millions of dollars waiting. You. Just. Don't. Do. It. It doesn't even matter if the pilot did or did not manage to land yesterday (still not clear), for even on Monday, another plane landing in the rain temporarily lost control and slid in the rain. This is just egregious and vulgar, and I understand the arguments of what that would have done to air travel in Brazil, but it doesn't matter.

-Congonhas is itself a terrible airport. While the structure is fine (they just finished rennovating the terminal, which is gaining its own criticism, given that the runway, and not the terminal, was what was posing the real danger), the location is the worst I've ever seen. Congonhas was built in 1919, far from Sao Paulo, but the city totally swallowed it decades ago. Why whatever governor did not say, "Hey, we should go ahead and block off some land from development around the city," I'll never know (well, I know - "Development" and "business" are the probable reasons, but that doesn't excuse anything). I happened to fly in and out of Congonhas on Sunday with my connection to Brasilia, and it was, to put it simply, terrifying. We kept getting lower, and lower, and lower, to the point you could see IN some of the apartment buildings, before we FINALLY were over the runway RIGHT before touching down. Upon landing, we continued going faster than any landing I've endured before, and I even thought, "Um, shouldn't we be slowing down?" Takeoff is no better. The takeoff was the fastest I've ever been on, and immediately on takeoff, we banked so far starboard to reach our flight path, I thought, "should we be at this angle?" Planes have had troubles before, most memorably when a plane went down in a neighborhood in 1996, killing 100. Once was bad enough, but twice is awful. Congonhas absolutely has no excuse to remain open, unless the city government actively razes the neighborhoods nearby (unlikely, given they are middle- and upper-class residences). The federal government spokesman last night said he wouldn't rule out that Congonhas permanently closes. That would be the best for Brazil. It doesn't matter if flights get backed up and screwy and delayed for years to come while they build a new (second - there is already the international airport, Garulhos) far away from neighborhoods. Brazil can't afford to have this happen a third time.

-There's no good time for such a thing as this, but the sadness is heightened by the fact that, until yesterday, the country was still celebrating the successful hosting of the Pan-American games (with Brazil 2nd overall with 38 medals). However, all of that has (rightfully) faded away in the wake of the disaster. Still, the mood swing from extreme happiness and pride to extreme devastation is pretty much palpable in the media and among those I've talked to.

The tragedy is awful, and one can only imagine the pain for family, friends, and co-workers (some of the victims were in the buildings or in cars on the avenue the plane crossed) must be enduring. The only thing one can hope is that people not only learn, but apply, lessons from this.

Historical Image of the Day

Alphabet City, New York, 1970s

Concert Review--Made Out of Babies

Made Out of Babies, currently one of my favorite metal bands, came into town last night to perform one of the first rock shows I've seen in a long time. When I first heard about the show, it was a couple of months ago and it had fallen on the day I was leaving for a wedding in Santa Fe. I was indignant beyond measure. This is the farthest west they'd ever come, and who knows when they'd be back but, just a couple of weeks ago, I found out that I wouldn't be leaving until Tuesday for The Fe. Quickly, my indignation turned to exaltation and I'd began waiting not-so-paitiently for last night to come. Did I set my hopes too high? Thankfully no. It was a $7 cover (I was happy for the bargain, but they deserved more money than that) There were three bands with MOoB headlining.

First was a local band called Hogpen. They were a sort of cross between Clutch and Iron Maiden. They were a good, fun band and did their part to warm the crowd up, small as it was at this point. I was pretty nervous looking at the twenty people in the crowd at 10:30 when they closed, but people started to file in as the second band came on.

This band was Mouth of the Architect, a sludgy metal band from Ohio. For what they were doing, it was okay, but I do take some exception to what they did. Basically, in about 1994, Neurosis released "Souls at Zero," an album far different from anything they'd previously released, and far different from anything I'd heard at the time. They played a kind of minimalist metal, with a lot of notes but very slow changes. It's spaced out and full of sampling and odd instrumentation and, essentially, they were trying to create a full sonic experience, for all the pretention that comes with it. I loved it and, over the past thirteen years, they've gone farther and farther toward that extreme to where it's often difficult to classify them as a metal band at all. Mouth of the Architect is, as well as so many other acts, a complete ripoff of that original sound from Neurosis, with no tweaking of the style whatsoever. In the end, because of the lack of talent and vision that Neurosis had, the performance came off as monotonous, repetative and kind of whiney. There were enough people in the crowd who liked them, though, that the energy of the room stayed up, even if mine began to wane.

Finally, at about midnight, Made Out of Babies came on. Part of me was nervous, deeply hoping that I'd not be disappointed after setting this up so high. I had noticed singer Julie Christmas in the crowd, but would have had no idea had I not already known what she looked like. She is one of the most unassuming people I have seen front a rock band. Small, with a sweet look about her, the only thing that set her apart from anybody else was a head of pretty big hair, which is not seen at a show like this very often anymore. Maybe the most amazing thing about this first impression was that she had no visible tattoos; unheard of in the modern rock scene. My crush on her having remained true, she took the stage and blew the crowd away. I had previously extolled the virtues of her voice and was completely unsure how this would translate in the performance and, surprising enough, her voice sounds better live than on the albums. Part of it is in her performance style but, on the voice alone, it's because she knows how to sing dynamically. She doesn't swallow the microphone and, as a result, her words are clear and her tone is perfect. She switches from guttural noise and shrieks to cherubic whispers and sighs at the drop of a hat and it, at times, seems like there are two singers when there is one. On top of it all, her onstage persona is something to behold. In reference to her innocuous presence in the crowd, in front of them she is all poison and madness. Scratching at her face, tearing at her hair and pulling on her clothes, she contorts and stomps around the stage grasping at something unknown (perhaps her sanity) until, all of a sudden, she drops to her knees and wails some of the most blood-curdling sounds imaginable. It really was a scary sight; scariest, probably, because I was more enamoured after the display than before. Hers was not a sexual performance, though a certain kind of sexuality permeates through it all. No, it was all psychosis all the time.

And then, as soon as it started, they were gone. They probably played for 45 minutes, and I'd have loved to hear them play a lot longer, so I was disappointed at first. The more I thought about it, though, the more I understood a quote from somebody standing next to a reviewer at a previous show: "How long can she keep this up?" The answer to that is, it looks like, about 45 minutes. It's selfish of me to ask for more than she gave, which was everything, because each song she sings is one closer to when she destroys her voice, and this is the last thing I want to happen. In the end, it was a thrilling time, and evidence that I need to go to more rock shows. My friend tried to get me to go over and talk to her after the show when, once again, she had returned to her unassuming place over a beer at a table but, alas, I was shy and missed my chance. Maybe next time....

Historical Image of the Day

Dwight Eisenhower meeting with Ngo Dinh Diem, 1957

Historical Image of the Day

Chuck Berry, 1965

Film Review--The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003)

Zatoichi is a simple man. Most days, he’s just your everyday wandering blind masseuse. But when trouble finds him (and it tends to), he’s a master swordsman ready to fight for whatever cause presents itself. This has been the subject of some twenty five movies since 1962, and it’s a great gimmick. Even at its worst, say in 1990’s Rutger Hauer classic, Blind Fury, it still makes for a lot of fun. The master of Japanese action, Takeshi Kitano’s stab at the formula is smart and funny, with gratuitous violence, just like a Zatoichi movie should be. Every Kitano movie I see makes me want to see more. He is consistently enjoyable in his deconstructions of standardized genres.

In this installment, Zatoichi (played by Kitano, who also directed, wrote and edited the film) wanders into town to find the villagers plagued by a pair of corrupt and greedy gangs. The thugs take his defense lightly, which proves to be fatal when the “masseuse” pulls a sword from his cane and strikes with blazing speed and razor precision. Along the way, he comes along a pair of geisha twins who, after unsuccessfully trying to kill him, ask his help to avenge the murder of their parents. Zatoichi dispatches increasingly tough opponents leading to the final confrontation with a newly hired, and newly married, assassin who is no slouch with a blade himself. Not the most original plot, to be sure but, as with Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, there is a lot of freedom to move with the details. Kitano uses the character as a springboard for a smart, stylish and tongue-in-cheek story that doesn’t reinvent the genre, but has a lot of fun with the conventions inherent in the series.

Kitano is simply a great hero. I haven’t seen a lot of his work outside the samurai or yakuza genres, but he’s perfect in these roles. He is loveable and charismatic as he relishes in killing scores and scores of people. He’s the rare cases of action heroes who can add acting skill to the mayhem and it lends believability that makes people like Keanu Reeves fall far short. Also of note is the great performance of Guadalcanal Taka. He plays the geisha twin who keeps a big secret. He’s brilliant in the role and the most memorable, fun performance in the movie. Everybody’s great, relishing in the bloody madness the whole time.

To me, though, the use of blood is the most interesting part of the movie. All of the bloodshed is done digitally. Ordinarily, I hate computer effects, but it works really well here. There are a couple of instances where the digitization is blatant and jarring, but it is mostly seamless. More importantly, all of these pictures are full of spraying blood and nothing is different here. What is different is that the lack of need for a hose or a barrel to contain the gore. It allows for Kitano’s remarkably kinetic editing style to shine through and gives cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima the freedom to shoot from crazy angles without the restraint of the effects.

Brasília bound

I'm immersing myself in high-modernist dreams of a forward-looking society in which all can live in harmony and peace, reaping the benefits of modern development and building a better tomorrow through a futuristic vision of the world.

Either that, or I'm off to Brasília on an open-ended research trip, so blogging from me will be non-existent for the next week or two.

Woody Guthrie

I want to mention that today is Woody Guthrie's birthday. He would have turned 95.

Just so we remember, here are the full lyrics to "This Land is Your Land," anti-private property lines and all:

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Chorus (2x)

Hot New Latin American CDs

Just wanted to point people to this story from The World, a radio show on PRI. They reviewed three amazing new releases from different parts of Latin America.

The Bahamaian CD is "Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay." Imagine a mix of late 60s soul with the unique percussive styles of those islands.

The Cuban is entitled, "Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume One." This is really freaking hot. It's never been released outside of Cuba before. I had no idea such awesome music was coming out at that time. All you hear about here is the repression of the Buena Vista Social Club generation. This stuff is pretty freaking amazing. Very funky and pretty weird.

The Brazilian album is "The Inspiring New Sounds of Rio de Janeiro." Now, I personally don't care how inspiring an album is. I'm glad these favela kids are recording cool music. But that's not a reason to buy it. The song played on the show was a hip-hop tune that was heavily influenced by samba. Pretty good.

I personally like the Bahamian and Cuban releases the best, but the Brazilian seemed good too. I'm not such a hip-hop fan so I may not be the best source on this. But all three are clearly worth buying.

Historical Image of the Day

Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.

I'm not a professional architecture scholar, but...

Imagine my surprise this morning to check nytimes.com and discover that Akron was at the top of the main page. Apparently, their story on the re-opening of the Akron Art museum with its daring new modern architecture was interesting enough to warrant space there.

I've seen the building coming together in chunks in my random visits back home over the few years, but have yet to see the interior (I hope to do so in September for my first quick trip back to the states in over a year). However, having seen the slideshow attached, I have to respectfully disagree with critic Nicolai Ourousoff. Absolutely, the modern design on the outside and the lobby look wonderful. And, as brutal as his portrayal of downtown Akron as part of "the dark side of the America recalled by Robert Venturi: a haunted Main Street U.S.A. of decrepit brick buildings, vacant windows and empty storefronts" is for the most part accurate. Akron was devastated in the 1970s and 1980s as the economy was in recession and the tire companies (save for Goodyear) all relocated their corporate headquarters and major production units (although, to be fair to Akron, if Ourousoff thinks its awful now, he should have seen it in the early- to mid-1990s, before the downtown revitalization projects.)

But having seen the slideshow attached, I'm not so sure the interior is as miserable as he makes it out to be. Is it daring and exciting? Certainly not. It's just a standard art gallery, meant to have blank walls and not-offensive spaces to display art, trying to put the emphasis on the art and not the room. Is this a bad thing? Maybe it is to an architectural scholar/critic/whatever, but to me, honestly, it looks not any different in terms of interior, display space than the galleries of MoMA in New York, the National Galleries in DC, or even the amazing (and underrated) Cleveland Art Museum (at least before it began its 6-year total renovation project in 2005). I am curious to go see the building, and I respect that Ourousoff knows a lot more about these kinds of things than I do, but if the general public likes it, I don't see the harm. I guess that's the difference between me and art critics, though - function over form.

"I Want To Say One Word to You...Plastics." "Just How Do You Mean That, Sir?"

I'm sure we'd all like to wish a happy 100th birthday to plastics.

That's right. On July 13, 1907, Leo Baekeland submitted his patent to the United States government for the invention of plastic.

We need to thank God for all the consumer products we can own because of plastics. Computers, cars, etc., blah, blah, blah.

But I'd like to thank Baekeland for a few special products.

Where would we be if we couldn't have handy dandy products where we could microwave our eggs?

I'd like to express my gratitude that materials science people have found plastics so useful in creating ever more powerful weapons that are currently being used to kill Iraqi men, women, and children.

And of course, we need to laud plastics for providing young girls with Barbie's unreasonably large breasts. No one has done more to tell women that large breasts are synonymous with attractiveness and therefore give young girls feelings of inadequacy.

Thank you plastics! Where would be without you!!!

Apartment Hunting

Is there anything as frustrating as looking for housing in a town you don't know? I am about to move to the Georgetown, Texas area for my new job. I am debating either living in Georgetown or in Austin, which is about 25 miles away. Usually, you can find classified ads online for different kinds of housing. But all I can find for this area are gross apartment complexes. I really don't want to live in one of those, but I am afraid I will have to. Craig's List has a few homes, but they are all huge houses that are too big and expensive. Is it that hard to find some rooms in an old house? Or a small house in an older part of town? Or something that doesn't reek of corporate developer scum? Or am I just not smart enough to work the technology to find what I need?

Historical Image of the Day

Anti-Japanese cartoon by Dr. Seuss, February 13, 1942

Brazil and Baseball in the Pan-American Games

Today, the Pan-American games kick off in Rio, and among the many sports involved in competition here, there is, of course, baseball. Regular participants like the U.S., Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic will all be present. However, Brazil will also be fielding a team this year, complete with some professional Brazilian players who play in Japan and even the U.S., and this is nothing but good news.

While I knew that Brazilians were playing professional baseball in Japan at all levels, I did not realize that the Phillies and Blue Jays have Brazilian prospects in their farm systems. I cannot stress strongly enough how great this is. If baseball wants to keep growing (and it should), it should move not just to create interest in China and Europe, but in the southern part of Latin America, as well. As I commented earlier, baseball could provide a great outlet for great athletes who do not always make it big in soccer, given the competition in Brazil.

Certainly, Brazil has a rough road ahead in the Pan-American games, being put in the same bracket as the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. However, the best thing that could happen to baseball is that Brazil makes it out of the first round (even if that means the U.S. loses - I have no false, or even genuine, nationalism in sporting events) and makes it to the quarterfinals or beyond. Brazilians always follow feverishly and avidly any sports in which their team is doing well (hence the huge popularity of volleyball here, and the growing popularity of basketball and gymnastics), even if they didn't follow the sport or know little about it, and baseball would be no exception. It won't make a bit of difference that 16 of the 20 players are Japanese-Brazilians; Brazilians see players in the Brazilian jersey, and they will root for them, regardless of sport or background.

And anything that can increase baseball's presence in Brazil, that can make kids see it and say, "hey, I want to play that", is a great thing indeed.

Did the bullets just magically kill the students, then?

In the wake of revelations on official police repression of any details of the 1968 massacre of students in Mexico, news comes out today that former president Luís Echeverría (and secretary of the interior in 1968) will not have to face charges after all.

Suffice to say this is an extremely troubling decision. Now, it may be that Echeverria had no direct hand in the 1968 massacre of students in Tlatelolco (though as he was the practical leader of Mexico while Ordaz Diaz was out of the country, it's hard to believe he would have been unaware). However, the courts have already ruled that the 1968 murder of hundreds of students was not due to rogue elements of the police, thereby implying orders from above. Yet now that the focus of blame has gone to "above", the courts have ruled that the highest-ups did not know about the orders to kill students, thus rendering neither the perpetrators nor their superiors "guilty". It strikes me as unlikely that Echeverría will ever see jail time for his role (even if he didn't order the massacre itself, he can certainly be charged with poltiical negligence and cover-ups). But the worst part of this decision will be that hundreds of unarmed students were shot like fish in a barrel in a closed-in plaza (police opened up from the surrounding buildings and even from helicopters above), and their families and friends will probably never have any peace in knowing that somebody, anybody, was held responsible.

Misunderestimated, again

Others have ably dismantled Kimberly Kagan's unconvincing defense of the Kagan Family Surgeshow, but I found this bit particularly amazing:

The larger aim of the new strategy is creating an opportunity for Iraq's leaders to negotiate a political settlement. These negotiations are underway. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is attempting to form a political coalition with Amar al-Hakim and Kurdish political leaders, but excluding Moqtada al-Sadr, and has invited Sunnis to participate. He has confronted Moqtada al-Sadr for promoting illegal militia activity, and has apparently prompted this so-called Iraqi nationalist to leave for Iran for the second time since January.

“So-called Iraqi nationalist”? Sadr is unique among Shi'i leaders in that his nationalist credentials are not in any serious dispute. His representatives relentlessly hammer at the fact that while many other Shi'i leaders, most notably the Hakims, chose the safety of exile, the Sadrs stayed in Iraq, and were executed for their activism. This is one of the main sources of Muqtada's political strength: He stayed and suffered with his fellow Iraqis. SCIRI was renamed SIIC and realigned away from Khameini and toward Sistani for exactly this reason, to make up for its nationalist deficit vis a vis Sadr, and combat the perception that it is an Iranian instrument.

I don't know how I can say this any more clearly: There will be no settlement in Iraq without Sadr. It's almost comical how many times Muqtada has gone to ground, and the usual suspects have declared him politically dead, over, dealt with. After four years of trying to marginalize Sadr, crowing every time he suffers a perceived setback, and running home for dinner every time he returns, stronger, more defiant, with bigger crowds, and even more juice than before, we must understand that A) Muqtada al-Sadr represents a genuine and extremely formidable Iraqi constitutency, one with organizational roots that go back decades, B) The survival of the Iraqi government, and probably of the Iraqi state, depends to a great extent on the government’s accommodation of that movement, and C) After four long years, the people defending Bush's Iraq policy apparently still don’t know very much about Iraq.

Our Disappearing Resources

Greenboy has a good post on declining amounts of key resources. Not only our oil supplies drying up, but we are seeing rapidly depleted sources of iridium, hafnium, silver, tin, and uranium. All of these elements play key roles in producing products we use every day.

We of the developed world have lived like kings for decades. We haven't given a second thought to our footprint on the soil, where our computers and other consumer products come from, or how our consumption affects people around the world. Now, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and other "developing nations" are demanding resource consumption on the same level as the United States, western Europe, and Japan. We can't supply those products. We're already seeing rising oil prices. Expect to witness huge increases in the prices of computers and many other products in the next twenty years, prices high enough to be a slug in the gut to world economies.

Every human-made thing you see around you comes from somewhere. Most of it goes through heavy industrial processes to get there. Look around carefully. You are the last generation to live at this level of luxury.

Quick Film Review--A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

1. A Woman Under the Influence was my first Cassavetes film. He's just one of those guys that I never got around too. I'd have to say that it is, well, fine. I can see why he's was so influential to the indie film movement. This movie shared both many of the strengths and flaws of indie film. He got some great performances, but the script seemed awfully weak at time. It could be emotionally powerful, but also not thought through so carefully. It was raw in both the good and bad ways. Do I need to see more Cassavetes? I'm fairly indifferent.

2. I've always wondered how Peter Falk got to be such a big actor. Not that he's bad. But rather, how did an actor with a lazy eye rise up past all the pretty boys? I don't know his biography that well, so I don't have an answer. I do have to say that I didn't find his performance particularly compelling here. It consists of lots of random yelling. He had some good scenes and I suspect the yelling thing was at least as much Cassavetes as Falk.

3. Gena Rowlands carries this film. She was pretty remarkable. I tend to be skeptical of mental illness on film. Lots of people exclaim what a great acting performance someone has because they are mentally retarded in the film. DiCaprio in Gilbert Grape is a prime example. But how hard is it to act retarded? Not too difficult, actors I have known told me. Much more challenging is having a condition, like DeNiro in Awakenings. Despite my trepidations about mental illness on film, Rowlands is a powerhouse here. She conveys so many emotions at one time. Quite remarkable.

Historical Image of the Day

United Farm Workers rally, late 1970s

Frederic Remington on Immigrants

I love discovering our "Western Heroes" revealing just how they really feel. Take painter Frederic Remington. As you can see from his work, Remington liked killing things. That evidently included undesirable immigrants too. Here's a quote from 1894:

"Jews, Injuns, Chinamen, Italians, Huns--the rubbish of the earth I hate. I've got some Winchesters and when the massacring beings, I can get my share of 'em, and what's more, I will."

Not only is the art bad, but the person is too. Sadly for him, Remington didn't live long enough to take part in the massacring, having died in 1909 after his appendectomy led to peritonitis. According to Wikipedia at least, his extreme obesity didn't help matters. Maybe the doctor was secretly a Jew or Hun.

Quote is taken from Thomas G. Andrews, "Made By Toile?" Tourism, Labor, and the Construction of the Colorado Landscape, 1858-1917," Journal of American History, 92 (3): December 2005, 837-63. It's a pretty interesting article and I'd recommend it to readers.

Reasons the Internet was Invented, pt VIIDCLIV

I've been enjoying the live recordings at Wolfgang’s Concert Vault, which has full concert performances for dowload from the formidable archives of Bill Graham Productions. Some favorites: Sly and the Family Stone from 1968, Albert King from 1971, Herbie Hancock performing solo from 1978, The Clash from 1979, and The Pretenders original lineup from 1980.

A Glorious Day for the Seattle Mariners

It's rare to say that I am happy to be a Mariners fan. But yesterday was truly a great day.

1. Ichiro wins the All-Star game MVP after hitting an inside the park home run.

2. Reports come out that Ichiro is on the verge of signing a 5 year, 100 million dollar contract to stay in Seattle. This would keep him through his first 12 years as a major leaguer, meaning he would probably retire in Seattle and go into the Hall of Fame as a Mariner.

3. Reports also come out that the Mariners are calling up Adam Jones, their top prospect and benching the horrible Jose Vidro. This probably moves Raul Ibanez to DH, getting his iron glove out of LF and replacing with a batter who seems clearly ready.

4. The Mariners start the second half 13 games over .500 and 2 1/2 behind the Angels for the AL West lead.

5. The Yankees suck.

It's still hard to imagine Seattle competing for the playoffs. But at least for right now, it feels really good to be a Mariners fan. As one of the writers for USS Mariner says, "As a lifelong Mariner fan, I’m used to finding a pot of crap at the end of the rainbow. I like this better."

Indeed!

Historical Image of the Day

Nixon and Mao, 1972

Covering up the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre

Despite its proximity to the U.S., for many reasons Mexico's massacre of upwards of 700 students in 1968 has gotten lost in the narratives of state-led mass murder by Pinochet, in Nicaragua, in El Salvador and (to a much lesser extent) in Argentina in Brazil. This story reminds us one of those reasons why - in 1981, 13 years after the fact, the state police were still silencing anybody who dared to mention the possibility that the state murdered hundreds of peaceful activists (not a couple "subversives", as the Ordas Diaz government, with later-president Luis Echeverria as titular head of the police, maintained in 1968). Recently, charges have been brought against Echeverria, but it's not hard to understand why Americans seem to have forgotten (if they ever knew in the first place) how the PRI operated as a "one-party dictatorship" that was not immune to state-led terrorism.

Knocked Up

I was extremely impressed by Knocked Up. Not only a funny movie, but a first rate film all around. I'm sure that a large number of you have already seen it, so maybe I'm not saying new here. But to describe the film to those who haven't seen it, I'd say it is 1/3 stoner comedy, 1/3 Woody Allen, and 1/3 Eric Rohmer. I saw it with Lyrad and another friend and it seemed that I liked it better than either of them. But then again, it fit into an overarching theme of films I like, which are really smart movies about romance and love. I hate most romantic comedies, but a really good movie about these universal themes is tough to beat. That's why I love Rohmer so much. A bit more distant, but the films of Yasujiro Ozu fit into this overarching theme as well. Rohmer, Ozu, Knocked Up--all enter into important discussions about love, family, obligation, romance, and sex (well maybe not sex for Ozu). It's unfair to compare Knocked Up with these other films, but it is in the same ballpark. That's why I liked the film more than The 40 Year Old Virgin. Virgin is funnier, but Knocked Up goes to a deeper level of human experience and does it amazingly well for what it is.

A few general comments:

1. Seth Rogen has a lot of potential. I suppose people have known that since "Freaks and Geeks," but he really would be perfect in a Woody Allen movie when Woody made worthwhile films. He's really funny and can act. It will be interesting to watch him develop.

2. We are really in a high point in the history of American comedic films. I suppose the last comparable period would have to be the early 1980s, when Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, John Candy, etc., were making really good work. Today, with Steve Carrell, Will Farrell, Rogen, and related comedic actors, we are seeing quality comedy coming out seemingly every month. Compare this to 10 years ago, when you actually saw films starring Rob Schneider. Good comedy is so hard to pull off that's it's a real treat when it happens. How long will this continue? Again, it's really hard to stay funny. Look at Ben Stiller. He has done little but dreck for the last few years. His next film hardly looks better. He's a tremendous comic actor. But either the roles aren't there anymore for some reason or he's gotten stale. I don't know. Probably the former. How long will Ferrell stay funny? How many sports movies can he do before the act gets old? Hard to know. But I'm savoring it while it lasts.

3. One thing that Judd Apatow does really well is give the jokes to the supporting cast while letting the main characters play out their story. The Indian guys (hell, the whole cast) in Virgin were terrific, letting Steve Carrell be funny but not too jokey. Same here. Rogen is a tremendously funny guy, and he told his share of jokes here, but it did not overwhelm the story. Again, the supporting cast was first rate here. Rogen's stoner friends did a good job and the jokes about the bearded guy were pretty funny. Leslie Mann as Debbie did a great job as did Kristen Wiig as the negative studio executive. Paul Rudd is always solid. And I'm always happy to see Harold Ramis and Loudon Wainwright III. Just a great cast all around.

4. Well, pretty great anyway. Katherine Heigl was fine. She was acceptable in that role. But she's not really funny in any way. She is certainly beautiful. But there lies the problem, not just with this movie but with the entire film industry. Seth Rogen is a fine looking guy but hardly is a sex symbol. He can have a major Hollywood career. Kristen Wiig was really freaking funny in the film. She's an attractive woman. But is she going to get leading roles? No, of course not. Because she's not stunningly beautiful. Not only does this reflect our society's inherent sexism, but it hurts the quality of films. Again, Heigl is good enough in this movie. But did she blow anyone socks off? Not through her acting. Should we expect to see her in 20 years? Probably not.

5. Not to nitpick, but it's always hard for me to accept things in movies that don't make sense. I'll suspend reality for the right movie and I did here. But it was hard to understand how a character who works as a personality for a major cable television network doesn't seem to have a salary. Heigl lives with her sister and is reliant on Rogen to support her and the baby afterwards??? Wouldn't someone in her position be pulling a 6 figure salary? That didn't spoil the movie for me but it was kind of absurd and problematic.

The Absurdity of the "Seven Wonders of the World"

So, the new Seven Wonders of the World were just named. I suppose I shouldn't care about these things so much, since they are virtually meaningless. But both how the sites were named and the sites themselves bugs me a lot.


Here are the named sites:


• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer
• Peru's Machu Picchu
• Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• India's Taj Mahal



No doubt all of these places are really cool. The only I've been to is the Jesus statue in Brazil. It really sets off the city. You can see it from almost anywhere. It adds a great deal to Rio's atmosphere and helps make it one of the coolest cities I've ever visited. But I have problems with it's inclusion on the list. First, there is no way that it should be on there over Angkor Wat. Second, when it comes down to it, it's a goddamn statue. That's it. It's a cool goddamn statue, I'll give you that. But how it is a wonder of the world? I don't really know and I can't think of a good argument for it's inclusion.


I also protest it's inclusion because Lula and the Brazilian government made its inclusion part of a nation-building project. Evidently, the same thing happened in Jordan. You couldn't look in any direction in Rio without seeing a damn sticker telling people to vote for Christ. That these things get involved in national politics is hardly surprising. I half-expected Americans to be up in arms because the Statue of Liberty wasn't voted in, which would have been absurd. But this leads to a larger question: should these questions be voted on by the general public? Answer: no.


UNESCO has distanced itself from the vote. The organization runs the World Heritage Site program. The Christ statue is not a World Heritage Site. Yes, that's right. Evidently, it is a wonder of the world, but according to actual experts on these matters, it is not worthy of World Heritage designation. This is no snub of Brazil. That nation has 17 World Heritage Sites. Thus, not only is UNESCO saying it is not worthy of its designation, but that Brazil alone has at least 17 other places more worthy. Nor is UNESCO biased against architectural sites. Among other recent designations was the campus of UNAM, the big public university in Mexico City. Brasilia is a World Heritage Site, as are buildings, both historic and modern, around the world.


So, the Seven Wonder vote is a joke. It was influenced by the tourism industry, nation building exercises, and already existing knowledge of places. All of these places are already heavily overtouristed, and no doubt it will only increase. Meanwhile, if you really want to see some cool stuff around the world, check out that World Heritage Site list. Wow, I'd love to check some of that out!

Historical Image of the Day

California gold miners, circa 1850

Barghouti

There have been some reports that Israel is considering releasing Marwan Barghouti as part of an exchange for Gilad Shalit, to bolster Fatah against Hamas. While this should have been done years ago, it's certainly a positive development now.

Israel's Ha’aretz editorialized last month:

One of the leaders of the Palestinian people has been incarcerated for approximately five years now in Hadarim Prison, in central Israel. The time has come to release him. For years, Marwan Barghouti has tried to persuade Israelis to end the occupation through negotiation. He has gone from one Israeli party headquarters to the next, meeting with politicians across the political spectrum. He tried to persuade them in order to preempt the next confrontation.

During his years in prison, Barghouti has acted to restrain the armed struggle and bolster his people's moderate leadership, using envoys to achieve this goal. Barghouti never left his native West Bank, never took to the habits of power characteristic of the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership in Tunisia. He became a popular leader - especially in the West Bank, and to a lesser degree in the Gaza Strip.

Modern history - including Israel's - has known national leaders who turned to violence and were jailed for years, until they were released to become political leaders who marched their peoples toward independence peacefully. Nelson Mandela is one such example. The leaders of the Zionist undergrounds in prestate Israel are another. Now, Barghouti's turn has come.

The Mandela comparison is apt. Briefly, Marwan Barghouti is a leading figure among the Fatah "new guard" who came of age in the occupied Palestinian territories in the late 70's and 80's, and took a leading role in the first intifada. In 2004 he was convicted of plotting terror attacks, and received several life sentences. He has continued his activism in prison, and was one of the proponents of the 2006 "Prisoner’s Agreement” which sought conciliation between Palestinian factions.

Barghouti features prominently in Sari Nusseibeh's memoir, Once Upon a Country. A student of Nusseibeh's at Bir Zeit University, Barghouti was active in campus government, and was committed both to non-violently resisting the occupation, and to building institutions which would support a modern Palestinian state. Like countless others of his generation, Barghouti spent his youth in and out of Israeli prisons for the crime of being a Palestinian nationalist. Nusseibeh effectively uses Barghouti's increasingly militant stance, and his eventual embrace of violence in response to the continuing Israeli occupation and colonization, to track the growth of radicalism among young Palestinians.

Moshe Elad, writing in Yediot Ahronoth, condemns the idea of Barghouti's release. Elad writes:

The crowning era is over. Reality in the Territories shows that those released on the initiative of the Israeli government are tainted as collaborators and as such become a target for assassination or are destined to be forgotten. Alternately, such a person would become more radical than he was before just so he can clear the collaborator stain. The early release of Barghouti just because Israel is searching for an agreeable partner for negotiations on the future of the Territories would no doubt taint Barghouti as the "ultimate collaborator." In the early 1980s Israel already "crowned" the "Village Committees" in the West Bank and supported several local leaders and mayors.

The crowning era never existed, except in the minds of a few Israelis. The idea that Israel could install its chosen leaders over the Palestinians was always a fantasy. The Village Committees were, from their very beginning, undersood by Palestinians as an attempt by Israel to create leaders subservient to the goals of the Israeli occupation. The bitter irony that these committess almost directly reproduced British efforts to divide and control Palestinian activism during the mandate period was lost on no one, except perhaps the Israeli occupation authorities.

There is no doubt that some elements, hardline Islamists and motorcade-addicted Fatah officials, would try to tar Barghouti as a collaborator, but the fact is that he continues to enjoy more genuine support among Palestinians than any other leader. He combines nationalist credentials with a non-corrupt reputation, having eschewed the trappings of power which many other Fatah leaders embraced during the 1990's, and which led to Hamas's electoral victory in 2006. Barghouti is not a magician, and it's very possible that it's to late even for him to make a difference. It should also be understood, however, that if the occupation, house demolitions, and settlement construction continue unabated, it really doesn't matter who the Israelis release.

The McGarrigle-Wainwright Clan

Scott points us to this superb Vanity Fair article on the McGarrigle-Wainwright musical clan. I can't say enough about how great Loudon Wainwright III and Kate and Anna McGarrigle are. Rufus and Martha Wainwright, children of Loudon and Kate, are also quite talented. Really underrated musicians, all.

I can't say enough though how glad I am that I don't personally know any of these people, especially Loudon. He's like other excellent artists, such as Phillip Roth or Townes Van Zandt in the sense that I respect the hell out of the art, but I'd probably rather slit my wrists than suffer through dealing with them every day.

Sickening Tourism

I am totally disgusted by the idea of favela tourism. Having spent some time in Rio recently, Mr. Trend talked to me about tourists (mostly Europeans) who come to Rio and take a day trip to a favela so "they can know what it's really like." Now, while I think people do need to understand world poverty, this is not the way to do it. Hey!--Let's go spend a night at the bed and breakfast in the favela. Maybe we'll hear some gunshots! Wouldn't that be romantic! Even better, maybe we can score some cheap drugs while we're there!!!

I will give Europeans as a whole a bit of credit in that, as a broad generalization, they seem to know more about the places they are traveling in than Americans. But playing tourism to watch the misery of others is wrong, wrong, wrong.

God knows Brazil has it's problems. Class and racial prejudice are two big ones, and they feed into the divide between the favelas and the rest of Rio. But I'm not sure how this is helping in the least. Rather, these tourists are turning poverty into playtime. New forms of colonialism/imperialism are created every day.

Historical Image of the Day

Soldiers massing to disperse crowds during Lawrence, Massachusetts' I.W.W. led strike, 1912

The Putin Youth

Hrm:

MOSCOW, July 2 — Yulia Kuliyeva, only 19 and already a commissar, sat at a desk and quizzed each young person who sat opposite her, testing for ideological fitness to participate in summer camp.

“Tell me, what achievements of Putin’s policy can you name?” she asked, referring to Russia’s president since 2000, Vladimir V. Putin.

“Well, it’s the stabilization in the economy,” the girl answered. “Pensions were raised.”

“And what’s in Chechnya?” Ms. Kuliyeva asked, probing her knowledge of a separatist conflict that has killed tens of thousands and, although largely won by Russia’s federal forces and Chechen loyalists, continues.

“In Chechnya, it’s that it is considered a part of Russia,” the girl responded.

“Is this war still going on there?”

“No, everything is quiet.”

Ms. Kuliyeva is a leader in the Ideological Department of Nashi, the largest of a handful of youth movements created by Mr. Putin’s Kremlin to fight for the hearts and minds of Russia’s young people in schools, on the airwaves and, if necessary, on the streets.

Yeah, I can't see this going wrong. Though I am curious how the above exchange compares to your average entry-level interview for the Coalition Provisional Authority....

The Magic of Tape

Ezra Klein notes that he didn't begin buying CDs until The Roots' Things Fall Apart, which came out...in 1999. And I thought I was a holdout for staying with cassettes until 1992, shelling out for my first CD only because Guitarrorists wasn't available on cassette.

Related, having moved back to the east coast, I now have access to a suitcase full of my old tapes, which had been stored at my parents' house. As much as Iove having a new old music collection, stuff like Fugazi, fIREHOSE, and the complete early works of Fishbone, what I really love are the mixes. I made about two mixes a year from the time I was fifteen, and each of them is a fantastically efficient time machine. I can make compilation CDs on my Mac, but it's just not the same as sitting there in front of a deck, pile of cassettes around you, cueing up the tape to where the last song has just ended, holding down play/record/pause, and then releasing pause, over and over for two hours. I mean, a compact disc doesn't wear out and distort after two-hundred plays. Where's the fun in that?

Lyrad's Random 10

There haven't been a lot of successful rock bands to come out of Oregon over the years and, of course, I've always been happy when a hometown band makes good. There's the obscure Riot Grrrl act Bratmobile, but the only band to come out of that state worth much in the '90s was Helmet. Technically, they were never around Oregon, but singer/guitarist Paige Hamilton and bassist Henry Bogdan were both from there, even though they played out of New York. Hamilton had gone out to New York to study jazz and, instead, found Sonic Youth and Big Black. Taking the nod from these innovative punk acts, he recruited Peter Mengede on second guitar and John Stanier on drums to complete the quartet, and they released Strap It On in 1991. The jazz tendencies came through and the bizzare tunings and time signatures, with stacatto guitars and drum corps percussion was a revelation to me. They were the closest east coast band to the Grunge sound of the day and, after Strap It On saw a little success, Interscope Records signed them to a deal to release Meantime in 1992, where they'd see Unsung (a great song) actually chart. Building on what they thought was a good thing, Betty was a more diverse, more difficult album. It's a very good album, but nobody cared. Since then, very little that's too good. The band has existed in multiple forms, but they never reached the creative or commercial heights that they had pre-'95. Hamilton has been there the whole time (in body, if not in spirit). Stanier currently plays drums for two fine bands: Battles, who just released the excellent "Mirrored," and Tomahawk, who just released an album of transcribed Native American songs with Mike Patton and Duane Denison called "Anonymous." Both albums are well worth checking out. Bogdan went on to play diverse projects on diverse instruments, and is currently playing Hawaiian steel guitar for Portland's Midnight Serenaders, who I'd never heard of before now but play blues and jazz from the 20s and 30s. Judging from what I've just heard, they're a lot of fun and I may well be buying the album. Anyway, Portland bands rule!

1. Helmet--Distracted
2. Earl Johnson--Buy a Half Pint and Stay in the Wagon Yard
3. Scratch Acid--The Scale Song
4. Elmore James--Madison Blues
5. Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf--Quartet No.3 in G for Strings; 3. Finale. Presto (Kubin Qt)
6. Hank Williams--Rockin' Chair Money
7. Ween--Big Jilm
8. Mob Rules--Hold Back the Light
9. Nico Fidenco--A Seeming Man (from the soundtrack to Emanuelle Around the World)
10. Kris Kristofferson--Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends

The Wages of Flypaper Strategy

Quote of the day from Mohammad Bashar al Faidi, via Conflict Blotter:

"The Arabs went to Afganistan and got a masters in violent Jihad, but in Iraq they’re all getting PhDs."

Friday Guitar Blogging

Matt Murphy.

Mister Trend's Random 10

There's not much I can say about this week's 7th song. I love LCD Soundsystem, their new album is great, and "Yeah" (from disc 2 of their 2005 debut) is probably my favorite song of theirs. Just great, fun, interesting music.

1. "Why There's a Tear in My Eye" - Jimmie Rodgers
2. "I" - Aphex Twin
3. "Candy's Room" - Bruce Springsteen
4. "Echoes" - The Rapture
5. "Ffram Ksland" - Sigur Rós
6. "King's Weed" - !!!
7. "Yeah (Crass Version)" - LCD Soundsystem
8. "Stone Pony Blues" - Charley Patton
9. "Gymnopedies III" - Eric Satie
10. "Step Aside" - Efterklang

So Many Rubins

Michael Rubin calls Matt Yglesias a liar for, um, linking to this takedown of Michael Rubin's tiresome, transparent warmongering.

The item in question,, in which Rubin essentially condemns as a Khomeinist stooge anyone who doesn't hew to the AEI line, is a classic. I found this bit of autowriting particularly fun:

What should Washington do? It should not engage. Diplomacy absent Iranian sincerity is dangerous. Between 2000 and 2005, the height of Iran's reformist period, European Union trade with Tehran tripled. Rather than reform, the regime invested the hard currency into its ballistic missile and covert nuclear program. Today, Iran uses engagement to spin its centrifuges and run the clock.

Yes, imagine what could have happened between the years 2000 and 2005 that would have strengthened the position of hardliners within the Iranian government, and induced Iran to invest more in missiles and nuclear technology? As always, the problem with people like Michael Rubin is that they don't seem to understand that Iran has its own Michael Rubins, who, even as our Michael Rubins have been advocating confrontation, have been screaming their heads off for Iran to get strapped.

I hate the Doors

Alright, any list of the "top 40" from one year is doubtless going to have its stinkers. But not only is "The Who Sell Out" most certainly NOT their finest album (that would be "Who's Next"), the last thing the world needs is the slavish, idiotic, pretentious Doors worship to be kicked up another notch. No way is this ahead of Velvet Underground & Nico, or, I'd wager, at least 20 other albums on said list. Rolling Stone has sucked and blown at the same time for years, yet the stupid still hurts sooooooo much.

RIP--Beverly Sills

One of the last great popular opera divas has passed. Beverly Sills, soprano extrodanaire and the face of opera for a generation died of lung cancer today. She was 78. Though she retired on the stage in 1980, she became director of the New York Opera and chair of the Metropolitan Opera, also guest hosting such programs as The Tonight Show and The Muppet Show (back in the day when people like Sills and Dick Cavett could host a show like that). Most importantly, she cared about spreading the beauty of opera, something that has been forgotten in the wake of singers like Andrea Bocelli or Charlotte Church and "composers" of new opera such as Robert Ashley. Unfortunately, there's currently nobody to take her esteemed place.

Lyrad's Random 10

If Fiddlin' John Carson wasn't the best of his time or the most prolific, he was the first. In 1922, a week after WSB, the South's first radio station, began broadcasting, Carson arrived, fiddle in hand, to play until he could play no more. He was an immediate sensation, which makes sense given his previous popularity at political rallies and fiddle competitions (he won the Georgia State Championship seven times). A year and a series of radio performances later, a representative from the OKeh label came to Marietta, GA to record two sides, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow." Long titles, and tracks that the rep absolutely hated, and only reluctantly agreed to press five hundred copies, which Carson distributed at concerts. Needless to say, they sold out immediately and he, along with the original Carter Family, became the first Country Music celebrity. With his daughter Rosa Lee (dubbed Moonshine Kate), he toured across the south to huge audiences. Apparently, he also had trained his dog to howl along with his fiddle but, alas, I don't believe any of this was recorded (I sure hope he taught the pooch to say "I love you"). Unfortunately, his recordings were not well preserved and sound terrible, some of the worst transfers Document Records has done. This is, of course, not their fault, but it would be nice to be able to properly hear his fiddle and understand at all what he's singing about. Even "The Lone Child," recorded in 1929, when technology had progressed significantly, sounds like it's sung through a tin can in the rain, but at least the recordings still exist.

1. Fiddlin' John Carson--The Lone Child
2. Robert Johnson--Crossroad Blues
3. Blind Boy Fuller--Cat Man Blues
4. Ennio Morricone--Guns Don't Argue (Theme from same titled film)
5. Albert King--Don't Lie To Me
6. Mose Allison--If You're Goin' to the City
7. Big Bill Broonzy--Too Too Train Blues
8. Henry Cow--Grontigen Again
9. Francois Couperin--Prelude No.2 for Organ (Jovanka Marville, Org)
10. Sonic Youth--Mary-Christ

The Top 10 Albums of 2007 (so far)

As we are officially at the halfway point of the year, it is time to offer my second annual "Best of the year (thus far)" list. Although there's a particular order on this list, it could (and probably will) change over time (indeed, looking back, I would probably switch around my number one, two and three albums of last year's best of, and I regret not having CSS on that list now). Plus, I haven't had much time to really let a few recent releases still sink in (the White Stripes' and the Queens of the Stone Age's new ones). With unannounced 2007 release dates of stuff from the Liars and Radiohead, among others, this list will no doubt change by the end of the year. Still, here are what I consider the best albums of 2007 so far.

1. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible - There's not much more I can say about this album that I haven't already said. If anything, it's only gotten better, musically, lyrically, and the emotions in it just get richer over time.

2. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver - James Murphy shows his 2005 debut was no fluke. Despite the seemingly silly opening-track title ("Get Innocuous"), Murphy again combines his dance, punk, soul, and rock sentiments together into music unlike anything else anybody does. From the killer lyrics both celebrating and regretting being American in "North American Scum" to the "Baba O'Reilly" piano line driving "All My Friends" to the hilarious and simultaneously heartfelt "New York I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down", there isn't a single misstep on this album.

3. Bjork, Volta - There's not much more I can say about Bjork that hasn't already been said here. Her ability not just to totally reinvent her sound every time, but to make it as daring, original, and compelling as the previous (and very different) effort makes her one of the most innovative minds in music right now, and where the inclusion of Pussycat Dolls/Justin Timberlake/Smelly Furtado producer Timbaland seems like it might fall flat, Bjork's songwriting abilities just make it even better. This is unquestionably her most varying album in sound since 1995's Post, but it's no less daring or amazing than everything since Homogenic. Like Duss, Bjork is one of those few people whose album I know I'll buy even before I know a damn thing about it.

4 Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare - Their debut in the U.S. last year was unfortunately a case of British over-hype taking its toll (sorry, England - no way they're already in the top 10 debut albums of all time). Yet the American-backlash-to-British-overhype was also overdone, leading many to ignore what was one of the best rock albums last year. Some may question how useful it is to crank out a second album so quickly, but "Favourite Worst Nightmare" is light years the Monkeys' debut. Where the first was light, fun, and about partying, this is all darkness and mystery, with the guitars gaining a far harder edge than they had on the debut. From the pounding "Brianstorm" to Alex Turner's tart voice soaring in "Balaclava" and album closer "505". If they Arctic Monkeys are going to continue to so rapidly mature and have their music grow, they can release albums whenever the hell they want.

5. Kings of Leon, Because of the Times - KOL are one of the bands that sort of disappeared after the "garage revival" hype earlier this decade, which is a real shame. 2005's "A-ha Shake Heartbreak" was criminally underrated and ignored. Fortunately, the quality continues, and the Followill clan are just learning to rock better and better. They still have their southern-fried sound, but the real treat is album opener "Knocked Up", which, with its pulsing drumbeat and driving bass pushing Caleb Followill's mumbled lyrics and the soaring, fleeting guitar, shows how great this family of rockers is at updating southern rock.

6. True Primes, We Have Won - Many may consider this album bizarre noise, but New York's Che Chen and Rolyn Hu have used drums, guitar amps, pedal fuzz, and unintelligble moans and words to release the best avant-garde material in a long time. Their fragmented pop songs are remarkable, and really bring back the notion of music as being "art" that is performed, without any of the pretention. The genius of the way they splice and connect their fragments in one wall of anthemic daring, and make it without question the most original album of the year (quite a feat when Bjork has new mateiral out).

7. Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City - Up until about a month ago, this would have been in my top 3, but now. It's a great album, and the quiet-loud explosion on the opening track sets up the album perfectly. No other album this year has had the political and social urgency of Bloc Party's material, and they've devloped both their political lyrics and their sound significantly since their debut (there's nothing like the earnest-but-hamfisted "Price of Gas" here). My one quibble is the album gets a bit slow in the middle, seeming like it would be better served to be 45 than 55 minutes, but the glorious ending of "I Still Remember," "Sunday," and "SRXT" make everything forgivable. People may be getting tired of that "post-punk" sound, but Bloc Party is just honest to god good, angular rock.

8. Dinosaur Jr., Beyond - With the reuniting and subsequent recording sessions of the original Dinosaur lineup (J., Murph, and Lou), there was much hope for another You're Living All Over Me, or at least another Bug. However, it turns out, we get another Where You Been, with Mascis's guitars wailing through the air, reminding us once again what a genius he is with the guitar turned up to 11. The album is as tight and great as anything since "Where You Been", and with the inclusion of two Barlow songs (always a point of contention up to their 1988 expulsion of Barlow), one hopes that Dinosaur Jr.'s back for good. This is just an awesome, awsome, sprawling album of great, fuzz-blasted, destructive guitar rock.

9. Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank - When I heard that Johnny Marr was going to be on the album, I was terrified. I've never gotten the Smiths, and ever since their breakup, I've found his stuff as self-indulgent and uninteresting as anything since the Doors. However, mercifully, Isaac Brock apparently has the bigger personality, and this is still a Modest Mouse album, through and through, full of the "ugliness as beauty" approach that often characterizes Brock's vocals, all over generally beautiful and fierce melodies. While the album has some more weak points than other modest mouse albums (the appearance of the Shins' James Mercer on "We've Got Everything" does nothing to an already mediocre song), but when it's good, it's great, particularly on the poppy, driving "Dashboard", the balalaika thump of "Parting of the Sensory", and Mercer's additions to the great "Florida". See also "Spitting Venom" and opener "March into the Sea". Not their best work, but still, overall outstanding, and finally, I can appreciate something Johnny Marr has been involved in.

10. Air, Pocket Symphony - I've talked about this one already, too. To me, this isn't quite as great as the Air-penned Charlotte Gainsbourg album 5:55 from last year. Still, it's some of the lushest, darkest, and warmest music Air has provided yet, and is a welcome development in their sound and songwriting skills.

Best Re-Release: I'd love to go with the remastered edition of Daydream Nation (it's cliche, but hearing it remastered is like I never heard it before), but thus far, this has to go to the re-release of Betty Davis's three 1970s funk albums. Davis was married to Miles Davis for a year, turning him on to Jimmy Hendrix and serving as his muse as he moved towards fusion (and he ended up divorcing her, allegedly, because she was too crazy for him!). Davis's funk is some of the rawest, nastiest, dirtiest, and funnest funk to come out of the 70s, aided by Sly & the Family Stone's rhythm section and produced by Stone's drummer, Greg Errico. Her first album (simply self-titled), but they are all of such high quality, the three albums (Betty Davis, They Say I'm Different, and Nasty Gal) are all well worth the wait for re-release.

More on the Favela Violence

Not to put too fine a point on what I've been saying recently about calling favela residents "traficantes", but today's passage in the New York times (an AP report, and not Larry Rohter's reporting) really reinforces what I said. Favela-resident community organizer Edmundo Santos Oliveira points out,

"For the police, everyone is a drug trafficker, especially after they’ve killed you.”

Mister Trend's Random 10

This week's seventh song comes from Christian Marclay. I really don't like the term, but "electronic" is the best way to describe him - he works with samples, loops, turntables and synthesizers. However, he also incorporates free jazz elements and style, and symphonic samples and sounds, into his complex soundscapes, making him as much experimental as electronic. Marclay's work is pure avant-garde, and he often collaborates with other musicians from other areas of the avant-garde (such as joining with Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and jazz musician William Hooker on "Bouquet"). Marclay's solo work can be about as nightmarish as anything, and as experimental, too. I've said this before, but it's unfortunate popular music conceives techno as either (but not exclusively) the Fatboy Slim/Prodigy/Chemical Brothers (though I also enjoy all 3 of them) blowup of the late 1990s, or as a bunch of music for kids on acid. Marclay's work, particularly the collection "Records 1981-1989", just shows how complex and fascinating electronic music can be.

1. "Dr. Baker" - Beta Band
2. "Bird Song" - The Instruments
3. "Three-Part Sectional Love Seat" - Sonic Youth
4. "Life Like Weeds" - Modest Mouse
5. "Porque É Proibido Pisar na Grama" - Jorge Ben
6. "Number One" - John Coltrane
7. "One Thousand Cycles" - Christian Marclay
8. "Segue o Seco" - Marisa Monte
9. "Tempo Rei" - Gilberto Gil
10. "Dry Bone Shuffle" - Blind Blake

Thank YOU, Joe Biden, for making me feel comfortable about condoms again!!!!

It's good to know that men have Joe Biden's seal of approval that using condoms doesn't make them less "manly".

Worst PR Move Ever

In a move that will surely put the ailing Amtrak back on its feet, personnell kicked a man off a Los Angeles bound train for acting drunk an unruly. First, they drop him off at a railroad crossing in the middle of Nowhere, AZ. Second, it turns out that he was actually not drunk, but in the stages of diabetic shock. The incoherent man ran off into the woods and is unable to be found. Amtrak officials have said that the company is not looking into the matter. Smart move, guys, smart move.

I like riding Amtrak, personally, but now I know. If I'm ever unfortunate enough to become diabetic, I'll have to switch to Greyhound, where it doesn't make any difference whether I'm sick, drunk, or crazy. Everybody's welcome on the bus!