Category: politics

music

Rock & Roll Bookend

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I wish I always could be so lucky: this past week I started and ended it at a concert. On Monday, I saw the Foo Fighters play an acoustic show at the Beacon Theatre (Frank Black – Pixies – opened). Last night, I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) perform at the Theatre at MSG after two different people in my life, separated age-wise by over 20 years, both raved about their performance on this tour. While I immensely enjoyed both shows, I was struck by the amazing emotional gulf between the two, mostly in terms of relevancy and importance. One was simply music – the other was music and so much more.
The Foo show was great and left me all smiles. Dave Grohl was engaging, a regular chatty Kathy actually, and their expanded roster of musicians (Pat Smear was back w/ them – gotta love a punk rock dude who was in a band called the Germs whose name rhymes with pap smear) played a lot of the new tracks off of the acoustic side of their new record along with a good number of older songs – “Its all about the catalog dude!” Dave yelled at one point. The songs were all really well done but one song sticks out in particular after last night’s show: “In Your Honor,” the title track from their latest album. Dave wrote that in honor of John Kerry while he was out on the campaign trail with him. He sung it well and the band rocked it out but he never mentioned the campaign, the current world we live in, Bush or anything political at all. He simply played the tune and moved on to other tunes, like “Everlong.” Looking back, it was like listening to rock & roll cotton candy – all fluff and no substance.
Comparabily, the CSNY show didn’t feed you at all: it threw a bucket of cold water in your face and let you know that shits all sorts of fucked up and then worked up your appetite to do something about it. I thought that CSNY would stick to a “safe” show of their classic hits but instead they grabbed the show by the balls. In a surprise, the group played a ton of songs off of Neil Young’s new album Living With War which completely slams the Imperial Bush Presidency and the GWOT (global war on terror for those not up on the lingo). I urged you months ago to listen to the Neil’s new disc and I urge you again now. The group displayed on a huge video screen US deaths broken out by month and lambasted the president for not attending a single soldier’s funeral. They showed a picture of every single dead soldier thus far – 2,607 of them (a fact I know because of last night’s show) – while they played a song dedicated to the troops. They put the words to the new Neil Young song “Let’s Impeach the President” on screen and urged the crowd to sing along. They played “Teach Your Children” and Crosby said “Every teacher’s salary should be tripled!” before launching into it. They played “Ohio” and as everyone was singing “4 dead in Ohio” it felt in a way like Kent State could have just happened.
My friend and I over and over again just couldn’t believe that it was 2006, almost 40 years after these gents made their debut, and that we were watching these 4 strong, clear voices belt out songs with such meaning, harmony and clarity, that we were watcing their fingers run wild and pluck out tunes that scarily matter more than ever. Their stamina too must be commended – they played for a total of 3 hours (with only a 20 min break in the middle so the show was almost 3.5 hrs long). Their message of peace is still a sound one. The peace symbol on the stage wasn’t a dated relic of the 60’s. It was a stark reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. There is a battle for peace too and that battle needs to be fought and not ignored.
Sitting around reflecting this morning, I wish every concert now packed the same emotional punch that the CSNY show did. Art for art’s sake in a world gone crazy sometimes is not enough. Someone has to be out there making art with a purpose, art with a message. It was like watching Lou Reed’s perfomance at the Hurricane Katrina Summerstage benefit for 3 hours. I feel blessed, energized and motivated. Maybe if every show packed this type of punch I would feel battered but a good slap in the face once in a while to me is a good thing.

politics

The Reasonist Party

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My friend and fellow “reasonist’ Mr. Neu sent me a depressing link today. I’ve known for a while that Pat Roberson is a nut but yesterday Pat had David Horowitz, a right-wing writer, on his Christian Broadcast Network new show. Keep in mind that Pat’s TV network is one that most of America doesn’t watch but that a lot of God fearing voters do watch. Keep in mind that half of Americans do not vote – obviously the “Rock the Vote” and “Vote or Die” campaigns just aren’t working – so you really need to pay attention to the ones that do in order to properly gauge the nation’s pulse.
Part of what depressed me was how the show featured paranoid ravings about MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, America Votes and the “shadowy group” Media Matters and how they are forming their own party as part of a George Soros plan “to take over the political structure of the United States.” While doing so, it repeated a baseless slur that Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew, collaborated with the Nazis as a 14-year-old boy. It was a sickening and sad display, and anchored by a smiling preacher who is worth between $200 million and $1 billion dollars. Say Hallaluyah!
Maybe Horowitz was attacking Media Matters because this moderate group showed how his recent book on these groups titled Shadow Party had “doctored quotes, shoddy scholarship, factual errors, and baseless insinuations on matters both small and large.” I know he is scared by MoveOn.org and CAP most likely because these moderate, centrist, “third way” organizations all advocate reason and restraint, not hysteria and fear. If you go point by point through the groups he trashed, you see how they are on the side of reason and moderacy – virtues and not sins in my book.
What really made me feel down in the dumps is that this sort of thing airs every day in the good old U S of A. This poison is being fed and happily swallowed by millions of voting Americans. I cannot stress enough how voting maters because as the Middle East has shown, democracies can be perverted by religious fundamentalism if those leaders win elections. Hamas was elected by the Palestinians because their secular leaders, the PA, were letting them down. One cannot deny the strong link because the fundamentalist movement and conservative Republicans. Rick Santorium, one of the most radically fundamentalist Republicans around, is one of only a hundred Senators in the entire country. He is one of only two Sentors from the great state of Pennsylvania. He is also believes that homosexuality is the same as if not worse than bestiality and he probably watches his good buddy Pat all day long whenever he can.
I bring all of these points up because I think the time is right to start a new poitical movement called the Reasonist movement to counteract the nutso religious fundamentalism that is running rampant in America. Our slogan is “We make good sense.” We will advocate for laws that make good fiscal and moral sense, for policies, both foreign and domestic, that make good fiscal and moral sense. We won’t shout down the shouting opposition’s lies. We will simply wait out their yelling and bluster the way a parent endures a child’s temper tamtrum and then will logically respond with facts that simply make sense. I am a rational philosopher – instead of hysteria I prefer reason. The more extreme our nation becomes, the more I will take the middle road of reason. At the lead up to the 2004 election, I was solidly blue and very anti red but I don’t want to make a Blue State thing. Barak Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention said it best – to paraphrase, we are all basically purple – both red and blue. To that end, I want to reframe the entire discussion and create a third way: a way of reason. Who’s with me?

politics

George Allen: American Idiot

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I just love it when Sen. George Allen (R – VA), calls the Indian gentleman who is following him around on the campaign trail a “macaca,” which is a form of monkey, and tells him “Welcome to America.” First off, as he’s in the Senate, can’t he at least be able figure out the difference between an Indian and a black guy? If you are going to make a racial slur, make it the right one and call him a turban head or something witty like that. Second, Mr. S. R. Sidarth is an American citizen, born and raised in Virginia, who goes to UVA so he was welcomed to America a long time ago by the doctor who delivered him. Not only that, he’s a potential voter! Who cares if he is trailing him because he works for the Webb campaign (Jim Webb is his Democratic opponent). If he was crafty enough, he’d be able to win his vote.

FYI, I just contributed $10 to Jim Webb, George Allen’s opponent, who I really hope wins (and not just because he’s a Democrat but because his opponent is a racist idiot).

politics

What One Senator Thinks About Net Neutrality

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Sen. Ted Steven’s (R – Alaska) comments on the issue of net neutrality might be old news to some but they are still very funny and post worthy. For those that don’t know, this sage Senator, who is charge of the committee that will decide the future of the Net as we know it, said that “The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s, it’s a series of tube.” Lovely. Watch Jon Stewart and crew rip him a new one. Happy Friday!

politics

Animal House Summit Op-Ed

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I don’t love Maureen Dowd’s columns – sometimes they are just too cutsy and snarky for me. That being said, she had a great piece today on W and how he’s just never changed from the frat boy that he is at heart. A lot of people thought that when he became president he would “grow up” but that never happened. Here is a snipit:

The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits — no matter how decorous or serious — into a comfortable frat house.
No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach — swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.

Feel free to read the full article after the jump.
Animal House Summit

By MAUREEN DOWD
Reporters who covered W.’s 2000 campaign often wondered whether the Bush scion would give up acting the fool if he got to be the king.
Would he stop playing peekaboo with his pre-meal moist towels during airplane interviews? Would he quit scrunching up his face and wiggling his eyebrows at memorial services? Would he replace levity and inanity with gravity?
“In many regards, the Bush I knew did not seem to be built for what lay ahead,’’ wrote Frank Bruni, the Times writer who covered W.’s ascent, in his book “Ambling Into History.” “The Bush I knew was part scamp and part bumbler, a timeless fraternity boy and heedless cutup, a weekday gym rat and weekend napster, an adult with an inner child that often brimmed to the surface or burst through.”
The open-microphone incident at the G-8 lunch in St. Petersburg on Monday illustrated once more that W. never made any effort to adapt. The president has enshrined his immaturity and insularity, turning every environment he inhabits — no matter how decorous or serious — into a comfortable frat house.
No matter what the trappings or the ceremonies require of the leader of the free world, he brings the same DKE bearing and cadences, the same insouciance and smart-alecky attitude, the same simplistic approach — swearing, swaggering, talking to Tony Blair with his mouth full of buttered roll, and giving a startled Angela Merkel an impromptu shoulder rub. He can make even a global summit meeting seem like a kegger.
Catching W. off-guard, the really weird thing is his sense of victimization. He’s strangely resentful about the actual core of his job. Even after the debacles of Iraq and Katrina, he continues to treat the presidency as a colossal interference with his desire to mountain bike and clear brush.
In snippets of overheard conversation, Mr. Bush says he has not bothered to prepare any closing remarks and grouses about having to listen to other world leaders talk too long. What did he think being president was about?
The world may be blowing up, and the president may have a rare opportunity to jaw-jaw about bang-bang with his peers, but that pales in comparison with his burning desire to return to his feather pillow and gym back at the White House.
“Gotta go home,’’ he tells the guy next to him. “Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home.” A White House spokesman said Mr. Bush had nothing on his schedule after he returned to Washington on Monday about 4 p.m.
When he began meandering about how big Russia was, you expected him to yell, “Yo, Condi!’’ and ask his secretary of state: “Hey, what’s the name of that other big country that has more people than any other country in the world? It begins with a ‘C.’ Dad spent some time there.’’
Perhaps it’s that anti-patrician chip on his shoulder, his rebellion against a family that prized manners and diplomacy above all. But when bored or frustrated, W. reserves the right to be boorish — no matter if the setting is a gilded palace or a Texas gorge.
He treated Tony “As It Were” Blair like the servant in “The Remains of the Day,’’ blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: “Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you.’’ Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: “I know you picked it out yourself.”
After doing his best to undermine the U.N. and Kofi Annan, W. talked about the secretary general like a fraternity pledge he wanted to send out for more beer or a keg of Diet Coke: “I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen.’’
His loosey-goosey confidence that everything could be fixed with a phone call — and not even a phone call made by him, and not even a phone call made to the Iranians, who have more control over Hezbollah — was striking. He seems to have no clue that his own headlong, heedless actions in the Middle East have contributed to the deepening chaos there, and to Iran’s growing influence and America’s diminished leverage.
Mr. Bush may resent the sophistication required of a president. But when the world is going to hell, he should stop chewing and start thinking.

music

"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" as sung by W

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Someone had a lot of time on their hands and spliced together this terrific video of George Bush singing U2’s hit song “Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Its pretty damn funny and weirdly catchy. Enjoy!

Via Chris

politics

Israel With a "War" on Two Fronts

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Israel is now fighting the Lebanese in the north and Palestinians in the south. I am very worried that it will attack Syria too very shortly and with America right next door in Iraq, who knows how ugly this is going to get. I’m glad my friend Mendy got back from Israel last night – I fear for and am very concerned about Yisroel right now.

politics

Hillary's Minimum Wage Bill

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I’ve been on vacation but now I’m back. I just sent the following note to the junior Senator from NY:
Dear Senator Clinton:
I’m outraged that Congress has given itself $31,600 in raises in the past nine yearswhile those earning the minimum wage haven’t seen a single increase. I’m sick of Congress leaving working families behind while passing tax breaks for the richest Americans.
It’s time to get Republicans in Congress moving on raising the minimum wage. That’s why I strongly support your bill that ties any more raises for Congress to raises in the minimum wage.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lipson
She introduced a bill that would make sure Congress doesn’t get another raise in their own pay until those making the minimum wage get a raise too. Who knows, maybe someone in NYC will be able to make enough in one hour to not only buy a beer but leave a tip.
If you support this bill, go here and make your voice heard.

politics

Bingo Is Under Water

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First New Orleans and now Binghamton. All of my favorite cities are getting flooded these days. The NY Times has an article about how badly hit my alma mater’s city is right now which I posted after the jump. I wonder if the Sports Bar is totally and utterly under water…
What to Do? For Now, Sit Back and Watch the Water Rise
By FERNANDA SANTOS
BINGHAMTON, N.Y., June 28 — As the muddy, turbulent waters of the Chenango River rushed toward this city’s downtown, Anton Lucas knew exactly what to do: Move the furniture and tools from the cellar to the first floor, grab some wine and a lawn chair, and sit on a patch of grass some 50 yards away, watching the water rise.
Mr. Lucas, 54, left work early on Tuesday so he could prepare for the inevitable. His house, an elegant Tudor that sits just feet from where the Chenango and Susquehanna Rivers meet, had been flooded once before, he said, in April 2005, catching him by surprise. He lost $50,000 in clothes and furniture then. This time would be different.
“I’ve been partying all day,” Mr. Lucas, a self-employed general contractor, said as night fell on Wednesday, still wearing the yellow T-shirt and shorts he had on the night before. “All I can do right now is wait. Then I’ll go fix the damage, just like I did before.”
Along the northern bank of the Susquehanna, from Binghamton to Johnson City and Endicott, two neighboring communities upriver, flooding spared hardly a home and thousands needed to be evacuated. In some cases, the water climbed front steps and flowed into kitchens and living rooms, looking like chocolate milk in a blender.
Outside an apartment building on Riverside Drive, a blue toy car bobbed in the water while a man in galoshes carried two boxes on his shoulder up the front steps of a tidy brick house across the street. At Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital to the west, two doctors wheeled a woman into an ambulance, which then whisked her away to a hospital on dry, higher ground.
Sharon Landon, 48, a nurse in the hospital’s oncology hospice, said the river began to creep into the ground floor of Our Lady of Lourdes early in the morning and slowly inundated the cafeteria, pharmacy, lab and the hospital’s power plant, which meant the electricity had to be shut down.
For hours, she said, doctors and nurses worked to discharge the patients who were well enough to go home and prepare those in need of care for a quick move. “I have water in my own cellar, three to four inches, I’m told,” Ms. Landon said as she slogged out of work around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, her face glistening with sweat, and carrying a raincoat and galoshes in a ripped plastic bag.
There was, however, a certain festive feel in the air, with children and adults biking and skating downhill, toward the river, just because that was the thing to do. Some people carried cameras and posed for photographs by the Memorial Street Bridge across the Susquehanna, which sat partly under water late on Wednesday.
Lt. John P. Shea of the city’s Police Department said that the city was no stranger to flooding, but that this was the worst he could remember. He predicted that the waters would rise until Thursday, and that more people might have to leave their homes.
Then, “just like last year, and in the years before that, the rivers will go back to their normal levels,” Lieutenant Shea said, “as if nothing this bad ever really happened.”

politics

We Are Losing The War On Terror

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An article in today’s Detroit News details a study that simply states that the United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the biggest reason why.
Before you start complaining about who exactly was intereviewed for this study, of the experts queried, 45 identified themselves as liberals, 40 said they were moderates and 31 called themselves conservatives. The pollsters then weighted the responses so that the percentage results reflected one-third participation by each group. So, it was a fair. Not Fox fair but really fair.
Asked whether the United States is “winning the war on terror,” 84 percent said no and 13 percent answered yes. Asked whether the war in Iraq is helping or hurting the global anti-terrorism campaign, 87 percent answered that it was undermining those efforts. A similar number, 86 percent, said the world is becoming “more dangerous for the United States and the American people.”
Lovely. Nothing I didn’t know but still. 2500 dead Americans and climbing with no end in sight. Just lovely.