 
Today, let's have a national day of mourning for Ray Charles. (1930 - 2004) R.I.P.
Lucky Old Sun(Thanks for sending that, Dave.)
Fantastic new Uncle Tupelo site debuts. This one was a long time coming. My friend 
Michael Pemberton, St. Louis native and adopted New Orleanian, was the
first big UT proto-fan that I met. He's also thoroughly knowledgeable
about the band, with them having been a local band for him back in the
day. Michael's been talking about working on a truly comprehensive UT
compendium and putting it on the web for years, and finally ...Factory Belt is here. Big, exhaustive and with everything you always wanted to know about Uncle Tupelo but were afraid to ask -- lists of live performances, many with songlists; posters; photos; articles and much, much more. It's wonderful. Thanks, Michael!
The Cocktailian. In Gary Regan's fornightly visit to our favorite bartender ... a 1920s drink from Paris leaves our hero The Professor feeling in the pink. The drink, involving French vermouth, kirschwasser and raspberry syrup, looks fabulous. I can't wait to try this one. Tonight!
Planxty's Live 2004 reviewed. Sarah McQuaid in Ireland's Hot Press has a review. It's subscriber-only, so I'll post an excerpt:
From the first spontaneous roar from the crowd as O'Flynn's rock-solid pipes make their entrance on "The Starting Gate", it's evident that something magical is afoot. The four mesh together as though they'd never been apart, especially when Moore, Irvine and Lunny join in rich three-part vocal harmony on "The Good Ship Kangaroo". And always at the musical centre there's O'Flynn, his whistle and pipes a massive, deep-rooted core around which guitars, mandolins, bouzoukis and bodhráns dance in contrasting rhythms that intertwine delicately with nary a clash.I've never been such a fortunate punter before in me life. She gives the CD a rating of 9.5 out of 10. I can't imagine what the half-point deduction was for, except maybe for its not being an entire concert's worth and therefore too short. Maybe I could go along with that. Buy this CD and DVD. I'm tellin' yas.
Heads up, New Yorkers! You are not going to want to miss this show, believe me. Deacon John is New Orleans at its finest.
Classics of New Orleans music, a jump blues orchestra, arrangements and performances by Allen Toussaint, Wardell Quezergue, plus Dr. John, The Zion Harmonizers, Henry Butler, Sista Teedy Boutté ... jeezus! Get thee to Lincoln Center!
Ten foods you should never eat. (Via Matt) Actually, I'll have very little trouble avoiding just about all of these, but ... Who knew Bugles were so bad for you?! Fried in coconut oil?! Good lord! As for No. 10, Denny's "Grand Slam Breakfast" ... when I was in college I ate one of those, and within two hours was violently ill, quite literally writhing on the ground in agony. That was about 18 years ago, and I haven't had once since. Don't plan to again, either.
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Tonight on "Down Home". I'll be debuting the brand-new Planxty Live 2004 album, so if you're in the States and you're curious, tune in at 88.5 FM in Los Angeles or via our web site just before 7:00pm Pacific time. I'll start with the first track off the album, then a little later in the show I'll do a set of Irish music with at least two more Planxty tracks. Tune in!
Cocktail of the day. No, it's not a New Orleans cocktail, despite its name, but it oughta be. Very French, deceptively simple with only two ingredients, but one of those wonderful examples of cocktail alchemy as the various flavor components of the ingredients play off each other. Although after one sip you might think this had been invented in the Crescent City in the 1930s, you'd be wrong; it was invented in 2004 by Robert "DrinkBoy" Hess of Seattle. Boy, do we like this one, Robert ...
If you're anything like me (and I have what I consider to be a rather high tolerance for spirits), you'll be rather well-buzzed after just one of these. Faites attention.
New art by Tom Tomorrow. Tom's been working his ever-brilliant fingers to the bone:
You can get it on a t-shirt, or lots of other swag. Buy, buy, buy! He has several wonderful designs for sale -- the two boys who sold me my Gryffindor-coloured necktie in the theatre lobby after I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban particularly liked this t-shirt, which I was wearing at the time. (Yes, I bought a Gryffindor necktie. Other than the books, it's the only Potter tchotchke that I could possibly buy without embarrassment. Yeah, we already know I'm a geek, but it's actually a nice tie, dammit.)
Nothing good. Oh yes, bit by bit, it gets worse. (Via Wes.)
Military interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been given access to the medical records of individual prisoners, a breach of patient confidentiality that ethicists describe as a violation of international medical standards designed to protect captives from inhumane treatment. [...]Jeezus ....
Let's not forget ... Amidst all the hagiographies, canonization and deification efforts regarding the late 40th president of the United States, and before the Bush-declared national day of mourning, let's try to keep a few things straight. As many have pointed out (unfortunately, though, almost none in the national media), what should be an attempt to lay a former president to rest has turned into a frenzy of worship that's got people simply making shit up. The haziest area seems to be the cries of "He personally ended the Cold War!" Did he? Well, not exactly, but we can praise him for his willingness to work with Gorbachev, whose policies of glasnost and perestroika seem to have the upper hand there:
The Gorbachev factor -- too often overlooked in this week of Reagan-hagiography -- was crucial. If Yuri Andropov's kidneys hadn't given out, or if Konstantin Chernenko had lived a few years longer, Reagan's bluster and passion would have come to naught; the Cold War would probably have raged on for years; indeed, Reagan's rhetoric and actions might have aggravated tensions.We can, at least, praise him for his willingness to work with Gorbachev. As for the gushing "He was the most popular president ever!" ... he wasn't.
The reason Reagan is remembered as being such a popular president is because for whatever reason any time any media person talks about Reagan they remind us that "he left office with the highest approval rating of any modern president." While this was true at the time, if you only look at the last poll (63%), which included an apparent last minute expression of popular goodwill for an aging retiring president, instead of doing something a bit more reasonable like averaging the final 3 or 6 polls (Reagan - 54, 53, 54, 51, 57, 64; Eisenhower - 61, 68, 65, 58, 59, 59). A 3 poll average would give Reagan 57.3 and Ike 58.66. Or, a 6 poll average would give Reagan 55.5 and Ike 61.66.Let's see what some of his family, former colleagues, fellow travelers, journalists and members of his administration once said (via a post on MeFi):
"Poor dear, there's nothing between his ears." -- Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in 1988, at a US-Soviet summit in Moscow.Finally, a let's-bring-everyone-down-to-realism editorial cartoon by Kirk Anderson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. There's no link to it on their site (nor on his just yet), but I received a low-quality scan of it in email yesterday. Here's the text of the cartoon with its title ...
MINNESOTANS REMEMBER REAGANIt's right to be sad that another human being died of such a terrible disease (which may well be cured one day if the current president, who claims to idolize him, stops blocking the research that could result in the cure); it's not right to sweep all this under the rug. Respect for the dead is one thing -- dishonesty, either by overt false statement or passively by omission, is another thing entirely.
Outrage overload. I'm approaching critical mass. Watergate was nothing. A little burglary and a cover-up. Now we've got an administration justifying torture, discarding the rule of law and inventing legal justifications to keep them from being prosecuted for war crimes; we have a president who apparently thinks (or at least is being told by his minions) that he's above the law and can set any or all of it aside when he feels like it. We have the most criminally corrupt administration in this nation's history.
Prison Interrogators' Gloves Came Off Before Abu GhraibAtrios said it best: "Arrest Rumsfeld." The band of brothers who saved the world during World War II wouldn't have done this. In fact, they didn't. German POWs were treated extremely well, and I recently read an example of a letter written by one to his American captor, thanking him for his kind and humane treatment (and this, after we had seen all that the Nazis had done). Next, Billmon on presidential powers:
The Wall Street Journal has a long front-page story ... that demolishes a few more pathetic fragments of the Abu Ghraib cover-up -- this time by tracing the cover-your-ass legal trail directly to Donald Rumsfeld.Jesus Christ. Law professor Michael Froomkin analyzes the torture memo (via Lyn:
On pages 22-23 the Walker Working Group Report sets out a view of an unlimited Presidential power to do anything he wants with "enemy combatants". The bill of rights is nowhere mentioned. There is no principle suggested which limits this purported authority to non-citizens, or to the battlefield. Under this reasoning, it would be perfectly proper to grab any one of us and torture us if the President determined that the war effort required it. I cannot exaggerate how pernicious this argument is, and how incompatible it is with a free society. The Constitution does not make the President a King. This memo does.The man said it himself, when he was only the president-elect, although you thought he was kidding back then, didn't you?
Transition of Power: President-Elect Bush Meets With Congressional Leaders on Capitol HillI don't just want them thrown out of office in November. I want to see them indicted, convicted, imprisoned. The lot of them. I can hardly wait until the indictments in the Plame case come out.
Uber-icky. "I like that word," says Wes, who sent in the following DVD news tidbit about which we're both excited and a bit uber-creeped-out:
You'll never look at TV the same way again. Coming on August 24th is David Cronenberg's uber-icky cult classic Videodrome, which will be presented for the first time ever in a new director-approved, uncut and unrated version. Boasting a new 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer and Dolby Digital mono track, extras include audio commentaries with director David Cronenberg, director of photography Mark Irwin, actors James Woods and Deborah Harry, "Forging the New Flesh" 30-minute featurette on the makeup effects, "Fear on Film" 26-minute roundtable discussion from 1982 (with filmmakers David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, John Landis, and Mick Garris), "Samurai Dreams" complete and unedited faux Japanese AV feature seen in the film, the "Camera" short film by Cronenberg from the Toronto Film Festival,a promotional featurette, a still gallery, theatrical trailers, and essays by film critic Carrie Rickey and Videodrome expert Tim Lucas. Retail will be $39.95.My old roommate Bill worked on "Videodrome" in the effects shop when we were in college, and not long after I went to visit him at the shop. He showed me some of the life castings, prosthetic effects and latex appliances for the "Videodrome" special makeup effects, and even though they weren't attached to anyone they were still creepy and disturbing. Brr. Can't wait for this one.
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Planxty: Live 2004. It's here. Arrived on Saturday, mailed to 
me by Christy Moore's sister Anne in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare -- it seems
she handles merchandise mailings from his web site orders. (Incidentally,
I put the names together and realized that Anne's husband Davoc is the
fellow from whom I bought some vintage Irish whiskey labels on eBay a
while back. I'd been dealing with the Moore family for weeks now and
didn't even know it. Thanks, Anne and Davoc.)It's taken me a few days to digest it all, to immerse myself in it, to revel in it. I tore apart the package, immediately put the CD into the living room stereo and cranked it up as loud as my speakers would allow. I closed my eyes and just stood there in the middle of the room, leting the music wash over me. I was instantly teleported back to Dublin just three-and-a-half short months ago, and hearing that first set of tunes again got me emotions churning once more -- my scalp was tingling, and as soon as the pipes kicked in I got all weepy again. The CD is, it goes without saying, sheer joy. As regular readers (and radio show listeners for the past 16 years) can probably tell, I'm very passionate about music. It's rare, though, for anyone's music to move me emotionally the way Planxty's does. Christy's great and powerful force, his humor and his delicacy as a singer; Dónal's brilliant arrangements, and his complex, interweaving, spiderweb-like interplay with Andy's mandolins; Andy's gentle voice and great songs; and, of course, Liam O'Flynn's piping, which got the tears flowing the first time I ever heard him. Ehh, I'm such a softie. Lucky 13 tracks on the CD plus a bonus, and 16 on the DVD (the track arrangement differs slightly, and there are performances from various nights between the two), plus 3 bonus tracks for a total of 19 separate songs altogether. I ripped the CD tracks for my iPod, then used Audio Hijack Pro to make MP3s of the songs from the DVD that weren't on the CD, rearranged them to correspond with the song order of the particular concert we saw, and it's only off by two. Damn good enough. It's fair to say that the inspiration behind the Planxty reunion was the documentary about them made for an RTÉ series called "No Disco", by a young man named Leagues O'Toole. He was trying to make Planxty's music more well-known to a younger generation, but little did he realize that the film had a great impact on the band themselves, who truly seemed to have no idea how highly they were revered. Finally Christy said, "Lads, the time seems to be right; if we're going to do it, we'd better do it now or we'll all be dead." Here are League's notes from the CD:
Amongst other things, the year 2004 will be remembered for the public re-assembling of Planxty for twelve concerts -- two in Glór, Ennis, in the music heartland of Country Clare, and ten in the plush confines of Vicar Street Dublin -- their first live performances in twenty-something years. This is an event of some considerable historical and cultural magnitude, rendered all the more pertinent given the seamless realignment of Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Liam O'Flynn and Christy Moore.Ah, you're right there ... it was something I wished for, dreamt of and fantasized about for, oh, about two decades. It was a dream come true. Thanks to this album, I relive that amazing night every time I listen to it, especially when I hear the opening set of tunes, "The Starting Gate." After the first measure I'm right back at Vicar Street in Dublin, and a fair share of the emotions I felt at that long-awaited moment well up in me again. Fair play to ya, Leagues. Couldn't have said it better myself. Planxty: Live 2004 is without a doubt my very top recommendation for this year, and won't be topped by anyone. It's available on CD and DVD (both of which are essential) via Christy's web site; in my opinion, that's the best place to get it. Sure, you could get it from somewhere else, but if you did you wouldn't be getting it from Christy's sister. There's something special about getting it from family.
Uh, Mr. Bradbury, sir? Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite writers. I've loved his books since I was ten years old. I respect him. I like him, having met him at a book signing. That said ... I think that until he can demonstrate to us that he secured William Shakespeare's permission to entitle his wonderful novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, he needs to shut up and quit bitching about Michael Moore and "Fahrenheit 9/11". My my my, some people sure 'nuff do get crotchety when they get old ...
The latest Republican outrage. (Thanks, Barry.) An AP wire report on Salon says:
Churches that mistakenly mix religious and political activity would face reduced fines but keep their tax exempt status under a provision in a corporate tax bill the House is to consider this week."Mistakenly", my ass. This is a bold and desperate attempt to let them use conservative churches as political action committees, and is as cynical and wrong as David Duke's sole bill in his brief term in the Louisiana legislature reducing the penalty for assault to a $25 fine if the assaultee was burning a flag. I will personally pay for the water and throat spray for the Democrats who must filibuster this if it gets to the Senate.
Andrew Sullivan's hero.
Uh huh. Gobshite. (Michael Bronski, nicked from Tom Tomorrow:)
The most memorable Reagan AIDS moment was at the 1986 centenary
rededication of the Statue of Liberty. The Reagans were there sitting
next to the French Prime Minister and his wife, François and
Danielle Mitterrand. Bob Hope was on stage entertaining the all-star
audience. In the middle of a series of one-liners, Hope quipped, "I just
heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS, but she doesn't know if she got
it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy." As the
television camera panned the audience, the Mitterrands looked appalled.
The Reagans were laughing. By the end of 1989, 115,786 women and
men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States -- more then 70,000
of them had died.
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Cocktail of the day. I thought about trying to concoct this one recently when I heard the old song, and thought "hey, that's a good idea ... you put de lime in de coconut and drink 'em both up." Certainly relieved my bellyache. The name of the drink comes from the singer.
Now that I think about it, that alternate version featuring cachaça and coconut rum instead of the coconut syrup would probably kick your ass. That's 3.5 ounces of spirits. Maybe coconut rum instead of cachaça or white rum, then the lime juice, bitters and soda. Caveat imbibor -- I haven't tried any of the alternate versions. This is a very refreshing drink.
Fine awt.
A few weeks back Wes and I went to a
science fiction and comic book convention in Pasadena (yeah, I know, we're
geeks), primarily to get Ray Harryhausen's autograph on his new book
(which we didn't get, because they ran out of them), but we did find a
bunch of other neat stuff to haul home. Perhaps the neatest was from some
kid named Angelo who was offering to draw caricatures for free. Yep,
free. (My favorite price.) He works shows and parties, and asked only for
tips and donations, which he freely admitted were entirely optional. We
were so entertained by his result (he caught our likenesses rather
well, we thought) that we actually gave him a pretty big tip.
Wes was wearing his "Mars Attacks!" t-shirt,
so Angelo placed us on the surface of Mars, being besieged by marauding
Martians ("AAAACK! ACKACKACK! AACK ACK ACK!"); we're only seconds from
being disintegrated.
But I like the idea of creating a game to match each candidate's personal
history. You could easily design one called Bushopoly -- all
players would start with a $1 million trust fund, but would still end up
in bankruptcy after the first turn. Then the bank would pay off all their
mortgages and give them each a $100,000, interest-free loan.
Or you could have Cheneyopoly -- each time you landed on one of the
ultilities, you'd get a $10 million bonus and an unlimited
get-out-of-jail-free card.
Or how about a special Middle Eastern edition of Risk -- let's call it
"Insane Risk" -- in which the players try to invade and conquer the
region's major oil producing nations?
Oh wait, the Republicans have already created one of those ...
Another particularly galling part of the
post was this recollection from Leah:
This is an editorial from the Orlando Sentinel; I'll give you the
URL, but since I'm not sure if it is still available, I'm going to
reproduce the whole of it.
In a bizarre way, this past week reminded me of a line from an old
Kevin Costner movie in which the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham, in a rage,
shouts at one of his aides, "And cancel Christmas!"
Remembering Ronnie Reagan. Alzheimer's is a sad and terrible way to go. May he rest in the peace that his current cadre of followers have striven to deny to this world. I think the best way to memorialize Reagan is by making a donation to an AIDS charity or AIDS research organization, in his name. Also, remember Reagan in the way his widow Nancy specifically requested -- by embryonic stem cell research. Please do so. While it is proper and decent to bow one's head and offer a thought or prayer for the dead, the near-deification that's just beginning is already going over the top. It's not inappropriate to keep a few realities in mind, as Billmon eulogizes:
I found it hard to hate Reagan -- even though I detested most of what he stood for, believed and sought to do. Yes, he was as ignorant and stubborn and incapable of rational thought as our current president, but he wasn't arrogant -- or at least, he didn't come across as arrogant. He lacked Bush's infuriating sense of entitlement, and his nasty temper. Reagan smiled, he didn't smirk. [...]Raising a few points to augment Billmon, we'll start with Jeff, who reminds us amidst the deification by the right and the childhood nostalgia of Generation Y:
Thousands of Americans died of AIDS because of him, and his economic policies shot the deficit through the roof and left a mess for his successors to clean up.Via Kos, Josh Green:
Reagan is, to be sure, one of the most conservative presidents in U.S. history and will certainly be remembered as such. His record on the environment, defense, and economic policy is very much in line with its portrayal. But he entered office as an ideologue who promised a conservative revolution, vowing to slash the size of government, radically scale back entitlements, and deploy the powers of the presidency in pursuit of socially and culturally conservative goals. That he essentially failed in this mission hasn't stopped partisan biographers from pretending otherwise. (Noonan writes of his 1980 campaign pledges: "Done, done, done, done, done, done, and done. Every bit of it.")And DailyKos writer D.H.:
I have no interest today in attacking Reagan's legacy; in fact, I wish to praise him for his prescience in recognizing that Mikhail Gorbachev was a dramatically different man than the line of tired apparatchiks he succeeded. Reagan recognized that this was a man that he could bargain with, a man who wanted to make the world a safer place, and place less vulnerable to a nuclear war that would destroy all life as we know it. In short, Reagan looked into Gorbachev's soul, and knew this was a man the U.S. could and should trust.These days, the problem isn't so much Reagan and his works, but the works of those who call themselves his followers. The current crop almost makes Reagan look like a moderate.. To paraphrase Christy ... "hey Ronnie Reagan, I'm black and I'm pagan, I'm gay and I'm left and I'm free. I'm a non-fundamentalist environmentalist, go now and rest in peace." Although, Ronnie, you should be prepared -- there might be several thousand Central Americans on the other side of the river, waiting to ask you some questions.
The NOPSI Cookbook is back. NOPSI (or simply "Public Service", as my folks used to call it) was the big monolithic company in New Orleans that provided electricity, gas and water service, as well as running the transit system (now handled separately by Entergy, the MTA, et al.). They used to slip recipes into their monthly bills, and after a while these were compiled with others into a big cookbook that was used to raise money for the United Way. Now, after being out of print for ages, and albeit with a new name, it's back. (Thanks, Greg!)
"Get the NOPSI Cookbook ... It gives you the basics for making real New Orleans food."From Woodstoves to Microwaves: Cooking with Entergy is available for $19.95 plus $3 shipping and handling from The United Way of Greater New Orleans. The books and publishing rights were donated by Entergy, and all the money goes to charity. It's a great book for a good cause.
The spelling bee is fixed! Fixed! Corrupt! A scam! Appalling! Shocking! Okay, not really ... but our friend Steve pointed out that the winning word -- "autochthonous" -- was in fact Dictionary.com's Word of the Day yesterday ... the very day before the finals of the Spelling Bee took place! Coincidence? I THINK NOT! Quick! Call a Congressional investigation! (Actually, that's futile; the Republicans would only block it, as is their wont.)
Word of the Day for Tuesday June 2, 2004Seriously, it's a wild coincidence, ain't it? It's particularly so when you consider that probably not one of us have ever used the word "autochthonous" in a sentence, nor was even aware of its existence, and it pops up in rapid succession two days in a row. Actually, the bigger news was not the kid who won with "autochthonous", but the kid who came in second with "alopecoid" -- he was apparently so nervous (or something) that he fainted before attempting to spell the word. He seems to be more famous than the actual winner. He's fine, but I hope he stays that way -- if the kids he goes to school with are anything like the little feckers I went to school with, he'll be mercilessly harrassed about his little moment for the rest of his school days.
President Harkonnen? Someone posting in the comments section of the always stupendously excellent Whiskey Bar pointed toward an essay by novelist Frank Herbert in which he describes the genesis of the Dune novels:
[T]here are analogs in Dune of today's events -- corruption and bribery in the highest places, whole police forces lost to organized crime, regulatory agencies taken over by the people they are supposed to regulate. The scarce water of Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. CHOAM is OPEC.The commenter continued, saying that "going by that, the Americans as a whole would be the Corrinos, the ruling family of the empire, and the U.S. military the Sardaukar. The Bush family would make excellent Harkonnens, the powerful, corrupt group who gained power and influence through CHOAM and have designs on the Empire itself. We don't seem to have anyone filling the House Atreidies role so far though. I do have images of Al Gore playing Lawrence of Arabia in Iraq, but that's probably just a beautiful dream." Later, Jérôme Guillet posted, "France is the natural Atreides, of course." Heh. Karl Rove as Piter de Vries? Who'd be the Beast Rabban, Cheney or Rumsfeld? Someone who's good with Photoshop should show us how Baron Bush would look with red hair.
The
The Covert Kingdom Joe Bageant, who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family, writes of a looming danger that he sees to be far more potentially dangerous to American freedom than Islamic fundamentalism -- that's Christian fundamentalism. Read the whole thing, disturbing as it is, and especially the last line. While it may seem shocking on the surface, I have to agree -- my tolerance of someone else's religious views ends when there's a threat that said views could be imposed on me against my will.
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Busy news day. Things are beginning to get very interesting. (Mostly nicked from Atrios):
CIA Director Tenet Resigns.Yep, very interesting indeed. All it'll take now is for a mere handful of people to do the right thing.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Oh, to be a Republican. This arrived in Monday's email from our friend Haven. Not only should this be pointed out far and wide, but it also needs to be written on the end of a large wooden board, so that certain people can read what's written on the board, then the board can be used to smack them in the middle of their forehead. (Snap out of it!)
To be a Republican in 2004, somehow you have to believe...They control (or heavily influence) all three branches of government, and the country has gone mad.
What the f...? I know I keep saying it gets worse and more surreal every day, but ... every day, it gets worse and more surreal:
WASHINGTON, June 1 -- Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran's intelligence service, betraying one of Washington's most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials.I'm still debating what's more bizarre -- the Pentagon's Iraqi servant boy selling them out to the Axis of Evil, or some drunk slob spilling his guts to said Iraqi. Given the situation, I suppose there wasn't much else for the silly bastard to go but get drunk, was there? Why aren't the neocons and ShrubCo shrieking "Treason!", do you suppose?
Eleven more seats. Stephanie Herseth has won the special Congressional election in South Dakota. She shouldn't have trouble holding on to her seat in November, and then we just need eleven more Democrats in order to take control of the house. C'mon, people, we can do it ...
Imagine my surprise. I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Shocked.
A newly unearthed Pentagon e-mail about Halliburton contracts in Iraq on Tuesday prompted fresh calls on Capitol Hill for probes into whether Vice President Dick Cheney helped his old firm get the deals.It was only "deferred" pay, though.
A journal entry by Neil Gaiman, (one of my favorite writers), in which the author finally has The Conversation with his daughter. A lovely story, indeed.
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Fareweel, auld freend. In 1988, at a wee shop on the Isle of Skye, I spent more money than I'd ever spent up until then for a single bottle of liquor. It was a bottle of 
Talisker
Isle of Skye
Pure Highland Malt
Scotch Whisky, distilled in 1956 and bottled only a few weeks before my
arrival in Scotland (that made it a 32-year-old, in case you don't want to
do the math). Last night, we finished it off. It was time.My four days on the Isle of Skye were absolutely magical (remind me to write about them one day) and included a quest to visit the piping musuem (a.k.a. The Skye Piping Centre) on the Duirinish Peninsula, a ways north up the B884 almost all the way to the end of the road at Dunvegan Head. I really love the Highland pipes (shut up) and was determined to visit the museum, but everyone I mentioned it to said the same thing: "Och, the museum's rather boring, really. You'll be through the whole thing in about ten minutes." Stubborn Irish-American bastard that I am, I declined to listen. I ended up having a lovely lunch at a wee restaurant (whose name escapes me) just outside Dunvegan, and just a bit down the road was an even more wee thatched cottage with a sign out front that simply said "The Whisky Shop." Well, that's too intriguing not to investigate. I walked over, opened the door, ringing the attached bell. It was a long, narrow space, with the counter at the far end. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling, bottles of whisky, very few of which I'd even heard of at the time. (Even now, I'll bet there were some obscure ones you rarely see over here.) I chatted with the very nice proprietor for a while, then asked him to show me something wonderful. Without hesitation he directed my attention to two bottles on shelves right next to the register, with newly-typed description cards below. "It's our own malt, from right here on the island," he said. "These whiskies have just come out of the oaken casks and were just bottled a few weeks ago." There were a 34-year-old 1954 vintage and a 32-year-old 1956, the former considerably more expensive than the latter. I asked him what they were like, and he knocked off a rather florid description of the '54; when he tried to describe the '56, though, he was actually speechless for a moment, searching for the right words. Finally he said, "It's absolutely glorious." The sensible part of me didn't want to spend that much money, particularly since it was late in the trip and I was running low on cash. We continued to chat, and he asked me what I was up to for the day. When I told him, he said, "Well now, I wager you'll find the piping museum to be a bit boring -- you'll get through the whole thing in about ten or fifteen minutes." Sigh. Thanks, but I think I'll go up anyway. It was a lovely drive, up along the mountains of Beinn na Creiche, Ben Ettow and Ben Skriaig, through Colbost, Borreraig and Galtrigill, up to the Skye Piping Centre just about at the end of the road. It was fairly boring, and I was finished with it in about ten or fifteen minutes. Sigh. As I drove back, I passed The Whisky Shop again, and without a conscious thought my hands quickly turned the wheel until I was back in my same parking place from earlier. In through the front door, making that little bell ring ... to be greeted by booming laughter from behind the counter. "I knew you'd be back," said the proprietor, who had already wrapped up a bottle of the '56 Talisker for travel. I thought, "Feck it," and tossed my credit card on the counter. How long will it be before I'm ever here again, and when will I ever have the opportunity to drink a thirty-two-year-old whisky that isn't even exported from the island? There isn't anything I can buy that'll make me remember my experiences on Skye more than that bottle. I decided to hold on to the bottle unopened, and to wait for an appropriate occasion to present itself before I opened it. Six years it sat sealed, wrapped in bubble wrap inside a padded envelope on the floor against the wall in the very back of my closet (well-protected against earthquake, don't ya know) ... six years. Sometime in 1994 an occasion presented itself, and I smacked myself on the head for not having opened it a bit earlier. Off came the cap, and a wee dram went into the glass. It was ... absolutely glorious. I kept that bottle for a total of sixteen years. It didn't come out of its hiding place very often -- sometimes for very special occasions, sometimes to share with close friends. This was The Good Stuff, not casually consumed. Now it's 2004, a new century, in a new house and with life going in all kinds of interesting directions. I had about two inches of that whisky left, and I began to worry that with so little left in the bottle its quality might begin to deteriorate. Plus, we had new whiskeys to try -- from Ireland we'd brought back a bottle of Midleton Very Rare, the 2003 bottling (of which we are the owners of numbered bottle No. 56). This was a splurge -- Midleton is perhaps the finest of blended Irish whiskeys, being a blend of 16- to 24-year-old single malts personally chosen and blended by Master Distiller Barry Crockett. On their recent visit to Los Angeles, our friends with whom we stayed in Galway brought over a bottle of Bushmills 21-Year-Old Malt, matured in Bourbon and sherry barrels and finished in Madeira casks, so we're pretty good for fine sippin' whiskey. I decided it was time to put my old friend Talisker to bed.
We had a few friends over yesterday evening,
quaffed some Moscow Mules and
Cocktails à la Louisiane,
scarfed down some red beans 'n rice
(it was Monday, after all) and for a postprandial tipple, out came the
Yer man's still right -- what a glorious drink, going down as smooth as the finest silk. The nose featured honey, vanilla and honeysuckle notes; on the palate it's slightly smoky without overwhelming the lingering notes from the nose; on finish, you get a whiff and spray of the sea. Now it's gone. Fine spirits are meant to be drunk, not hoarded. I'd had this one long enough, and it was high time to enjoy it and move on. It would have been far worse if I'd saved it for so long that the remaining amount had deteriorated in quality. Besides, he had a worthy successor -- while it might not be a 32-year-old, that 21-year-old Bushmills was pretty amazing in its own right. I'm never throwing that bottle away, though. (In the unlikely event you need to translate the post headline, try The Online Scots Dictionary.)
Please sir, I want some more! When I was a kid in my mid-twenties, travelling around Ireland and Scotland for a month on a tight budget, I didn't think that splurging on whisky was necessarily a great idea. Faced with the absolute gloriousness of that '56 Talisker, though, I decided not to give it a second thought, and did The Bad Thing With The Credit Card. Easy peasy. As I recall, at the time that whisky cost me £85, which at 1988 exchange rates was about $144 (adjusted for inflation and current lousy exchange rates, it'd be about $257.15 in today's dollars ... feck). That was a pretty penny back then (still is), and it took a wee while to pay off that credit card bill -- that not being my only deferred expense, of course. While writing the above post with the empty Talisker bottle next to my computer, I decided to do some Googling and see if there was any chance that that whisky was still available and, if so, how much it would cost. I quickly found myself at The Whisky Exchange, which has a catalogue section with many rare and old bottles for sale. They had, in fact, an entire page devoted to Talisker. Listed right there was the current price, and a tempting link that said "Buy". I looked at the price for a minute, thought ... well, that's a lot, but that doesn't necessarily seem so bad. Then I did the conversion from sterling into dollars ... The listed price, with the VAT removed for us non-E.U. residents, was a mere £339.57 per bottle, which at today's rate of exhange for the pound sterling comes out to $624.04. Europeans subject to VAT pay £398.99 per bottle, or $732.72. (*glerp*) Um, maybe we'll just stick with that Bushmills 21 for the time being, a bargain at about 15% of the price. (If I win da Lott'ry, though, I'm buyin' a case of that stuff.)
Fountain of suet? My friend Diana forwarded the following obituary from the Los Angeles Times, which was notable for one particular comment about the life of the deceased:
Ramona Trinidad Iglesias-Jordan, the world's oldest person and the last human being on Earth born in the year 1889, died Saturday of pneumonia in Rio Piedras, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico. She was 114 years and 272 days old. [...]Ignore her advice at your own peril, Mr. Young.
Where are people like this today? Where are the people like Archibald Cox, with the integrity and balls to stand up to a renegade president and make him answer to the people for his violations of the law? We need such a person today, more than ever.
From Bush, unprecedented negativity. The Washington Post reports on the blitz of negative attack ads aimed at John Kerry in states where the Democrat is campaigning, attacking him for his purported opinions, postions and former votes. Apparently it's the greatest number of negative ads ever; in fact, Shrub has more pictures of Kerry on his own website than he has of himself. Thing is, most of the Bush ads' claims are utter bullshit, or at best grossly misleading. Quelle surprise. So desperate, they are. So very desperate.
Quote of the day. Say it again, Al.
In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president. I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability.The man who should be president ...
[ Link to today's entries ]
Helping to make a skinnier Cajun. The Louisiana Office of Public Health has come to a realization:
Cajun food is one of the most beloved aspects of Louisiana culture. We love it here on the Bayou, and others enjoy it across the country and around the world. Putting that great taste aside, we realize that some of the traditional Cajun ingredients are not conducive to maintaining a healthy body weight or a healthy heart.No! I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked! All kidding aside, the OPH has done a pretty bang-up job with its new website, Healthier Cajun Cooking. Our goal is to provide a basic understanding of nutrition and to provide suggestions for improving the nutritional quality of Cajun style food. In doing so, we have provided a complete nutritional analysis for each recipe quantifying Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Dietary Fiber, Carbohydrates, and Protein." Healthier versions of classic recipes -- just what the Weight Watching Louisianian needs. (Thanks, Paul!)
New Wilco album online. Y'know, I've known this for weeks but forgot to post it ... sorry! If you don't already know, Wilco's new album A ghost is born is available for QuickTime preview and pre-order (it's due out on June 22). Let's all send out some beams for Jeff's speedy recovery, too.
Dear Abby. From May 20, 2004 (via Patrick):
DEAR READERS: I'm still receiving letters in support of the 13-year-old girl who was ridiculed by her class for revealing that she'd one day like to be president of the United States. Read on:Indeed.
Our exit strategy. "The delusional Bush, his quagmire and November." Marc Cooper writes in this week's edition of his column "Dissonance" in the LA Weekly:
We finally got some good news from George W. Bush. We haven't had very much since he stood on an aircraft carrier a year ago and declared the war in Iraq was over. Now, we learn, the occupation, which turned out to be bloodier than the war, is also shutting down. So much for the cynics who've been predicting a quagmire. Eat, drink, listen to music, dance, see movies, be merry and be safe. That's it until next Tuesday, at least. Have a great Memorial Day holiday weekend, all you lot in the States. If you're on the road, watch out -- there are a lot of eejits out there.
The Cocktailian. In Gary Regan's fortnightly column today, The Professor argues with a customer about taking the rum out of the Mojito, as its new variations travel to Kentucky and Mexico.
Nat Decants: Finding a reason to go to Arizona. Well, other than the Grand Canyon, that is. I must confess that I really hadn't given Arizona much thought as a vacation destination (I hate dry wedda!) Natalie Maclean took her family to the Phoenecian Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona not for "the 22,000 square foot spa, the 27-hole golf course, the 12 tennis courts or the 9 swimming pools, complete with water slide ... No, the place I really longed to be was in the resort's dark, damp basement -- keeping company with its $4 million cellar of some 50,000 bottles. Hmm, now we're talking. Their master sommelier, Greg Tresner, is one of the few in North America, and in six years has transformed a 550-bottle wine cellar into one with a 110-page list that's one of the best in the country. "It even has tasting flights of rare aged cognacs such as Remy Martin Louis XIII, Hennessey Timeless and L'Or de Martel." Ooh. Bet I can't afford that.
Tresner looks Casablanca-debonair in his tuxedo, his silver hair contrasts with merry dark eyes. He shows us his treasures: verticals of port from 1934, a bottle of 1921 Château d'Yquem, a 1947 magnum of Château Cheval Blanc (worth $30,000) and the crown jewel: a 1795 madeira, covered with a respectable amount of dust.Bet I really can't afford that. The restaurant doesn't seem to shabby, either:
Aside from a spectacular wine list, the restaurant has also garnered fame for its fine French cuisine: it's just one of eighteen restaurants in North America to receive the coveted five-star rating from the Mobil Travel Guide. The man behind this success is Brad Thompson, who spent five years as chef at Daniel Boulud's celebrated New York City restaurant, Daniel.Oh my. Sounds perfect. But what would I do the rest of the day, when I'm not eating and drinking?
Super size this. Oh dear ... there'll be no offending the sugar, fat and weight-gain conglomerates, will there?
MTV apparently wants to keep the peace between its pimple-popping viewers and the fast-food advertisers who want to sell 'em on their greasy goodness.'Cause it's all about the money, of course. We saw "Super Size Me" last weekend. It was very entertaining and made its point, and I don't think McDonald's food has ever looked so unappetizing (particularly as a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Super-Size Fries and 48-ounce Coke were being barfed out the car window as Morgan's stomach rebelled at the assault).
Not fit to print.
James C. Moore analyzes the utter failure of the New York Times
with regards to its role in spreading government disinformation on Iraq.
(Salon link, so just watch the commercial.)
It's thoroughly damning, and the most
astonishing quote of all comes from the one Paul Waldman describes
as "Ahmed Chalabi's personal stenographer", reporter Judith Miller, who
wrote the majority of the "flawed" stories:
The story had an enormous impact, one amplified when Rice, Secretary of
State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney all did appearances on
the Sunday morning talk shows, citing the first-rate journalism of the
liberal New York Times. No single story did more to advance the political
cause of the neoconservatives driving the Bush administration to invade
Iraq.
But Miller's story was wrong.
The failures of Miller and the Times' reporting on Iraq are far greater
sins than those of the paper's disgraced Jayson Blair. While the
newspaper's management cast Blair into outer darkness after his
deceptions, Miller and other reporters who contributed to sending America
into a war have been shielded from full scrutiny. The Times plays an
unequaled role in the national discourse, and when it publishes a
front-page piece about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds, that story very
quickly runs away from home to live on its own. The day after Miller's
tubes narrative showed up, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News went on national TV
to proclaim, "They were the kind of tubes that could only be used in a
centrifuge to make nuclear fuel." Norah O'Donnell had already told the
network's viewers the day before of the "alarming disclosure," and the New
York Times wire service distributed Miller's report to dozens of papers
across the landscape. Invariably, they gave it prominence. Sadly, the sons
and daughters of America were sent marching off to war wearing the boots
of a well-told and widely disseminated lie.
The introspection and analysis of America's rush to war with Iraq have
turned into a race among the ruins. Few people doubt any longer that the
agencies of the U.S. government did not properly perform. No institution,
however, either public or private, has violated the trust of its vast
constituency as profoundly as the New York Times.
Peristyle sold! Arguably the finest restaurant in New Orleans, Peristyle now no longer belongs to Chef Anne Kearney Sand and her husband. Tom Wolfe, chef/owner of Wolfe's of New Orleans, is the new owner, and he's already in the kitchen. The restaurant's layout, decor and staff should remain the same, but, of course, the fabulous menu will change.
Both Sand and Kearney Sand said the reasons behind their decision to sell are complicated and personal. A primary factor has to do with the 36-year-old chef's need for rest following a brain hemorrhage she suffered nearly two years ago.I wish Chef Wolfe the very best of luck with his new endeavour, and I'm looking forward to trying his dishes (I still haven't managed to make it to Wolfe's, but I've heard good things about it). That said, I'm really disappointed that I'll no longer have the chance to sample Anne's fabulous, fabulous cooking. It really didn't get any better than Peristyle. I'll just sigh, and think again about our last meal at Peristyle, which I'll recap here:
Appetizers:Thanks for everything, Anne.
The joys of summer. Among many others, said joys would include the increased bounty of our farmers' markets. Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times Food Section gives us a few tips on what to do with all that fabulous produce, including:
Lately, in addition to sugar snaps, I've been hunting out English peas. When I find some that are really fresh -- sweet and not starchy -- I cook them in a way I learned from a friend, cookbook writer Sylvia Thompson.I love going to the farmers' market. I'm hoping our bi-weekly delivery from Organic Express doesn't make us lazy.
I love you like stink on a durian. Um, okay ... that's not liable to become a widespread term of endearment. I do love durian, though ... just not its stink. Apparently now the big, spiky, watermelon-sized fruit is cheaper than ever, and more readily available. It's got a pale, custardy flesh that tastes wonderful, but it really does smell like a cocktail made of puke, three-week-old unwashed socks, rotten cheese and ammonia. Once at a gathering of friends we obtained some fresh durian for our dessert. As soon as we opened the container, everyone groaned and fled the apartment, with six of us crowded on a small balcony, to escape the smell. Boy, it was good, though.
Today's doublespeak headlines. From the administration direct to you, via the "Irony?-What-irony?" department:
Los Angeles Times: Overly credulous, my ass. Too little, too goddamn late -- the New York Times "reassesses" its pre-war coverage of Iraq (and all the bullshit Judith Miller spread via their pages) that helped whoop up the cry for war, now that it's all been shown to be false. Perhaps Miller (as well as several other reporters and editors) needs to follow Howell Raines and Jayson Blair. Perhaps we also need a new "newspaper of record." Here's analysis from Jack Shafer of Slate. (Thanks to Wes for the links and header.)
What the f...? A former military police officer serving at Guantanamo Bay was ordered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative prisoner in a training exercise in January 2003. Apparently the other soldiers thought he was an actual uncooperative prisoner, and almost beat him to death. Just a few bad apples, though.
President Gore. (Via Atrios) Wow indeed. Why the feck couldn't he sound this presidential in 2000?
George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.UPDATE -- You can watch video of the entire speech via C-SPAN. Damn, Al's on fire.
[ Link to today's entries ]
To the land of saints and scholars. George W. Bush is going to Ireland, one month from today. He'll be meeting with the Taoiseach in the latter's capacity as current President of the European Union. Doubtless Bertie will welcome him, but let's just hope he doesn't have his head up Bush's arse to the shoulders the way his colleague across the Irish Sea does. Informal polls show that about 2/3 of the Irish citizenry oppose this visit (I'll try to dig up something more scientific), and the Dáil (Irish parliament) don't seem to happy about it either. This reminds me of another contentious visit by an American president almost exactly twenty years ago. In his book One Voice: My Life in Song and in a spoken piece on The Box Set, 1964-2004 Christy Moore described it thusly (links mine) ...
There was a terrible frenzy when that man came here. There was a terrible frenzy when Ronnie Reagan came. Himself and his wife and his entourage epitomised everything that is unpalatable about America. They came here and pushed everyone aside -- walked upon our ways and trampled upon our culture, purely for photo opportunities. All the gobshites and charlatans had a field day on this occasion of gross crassness and bad taste.Clinton was welcomed when he visited Ireland, and Kennedy ... well, potential crassness and bad taste aside, the man was worshipped in comparison to the Reagan visit. It was a running joke (with a basis in fact) that you could go into any number of Irish households and you'd see three portraits on the wall -- the Sacred Heart o' Jaysis, the Pope and JFK. I doubt that this month's visit will have even a microfraction of that feeling; in fact, I daresay that the current American president will likely be even less welcome by many of the citizenry there than the one who came twenty years ago was. I first saw Christy Moore perform at a mindspinningly wonderful gig at the Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City, California, on the eighth of April, 1987 (jeezus, has it been 17 years already?). Just himself and a guitar, too; Christy is one of those rare performers (as is his brother Barry Moore/Luka Bloom) who can command and captivate an audience with nothing more than one voice, one guitar and a warehouse full of great songs. That night he played one particular song that was never released on an album until recently on The Box Set, though it was a successful single in Ireland in 1984. That night it was also an instant singalong with the whole audience participiating enthusiastically. Although I had forgotten a few lyrics from the verses until I reread them in Christy's first book of songs, for the most part I remembered that song in its entirety, and sang it a few times myself over the years. (You were probably fortunate enough not to have heard that.) Shrub's visit will also be purely for photo opportunities -- as the Irish-based Stop Bush Campaign website says, "Bush hopes to use his Irish visit as a backdrop for his re-election campaign. He wants pictures of smiling Irish politicians greeting him as a 'statesman.'" (Statesman, my arse.) In the absence of a particular song to mark this visit to that tiny, beautiful island, I think it's time to sing the old one again. Here's a snippet of the chorus and verse, so you'll get the melody. Everybody sing along ...
Hey! Ronnie ReaganI wonder if Christy (or someone) will write a new song for next month's visit.
When Bush Comes to Shove. If you're in Ireland or going to be anywhere near there on June 19, you might want to pick up some tickets for a major event at The Point Depot in Dublin, organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement:
TICKETS ON SALE NOW! Contact info@irishantiwar.org or ring 087 61 87 680 (011) 353 87 61 87 680 from abroad AN ANTI-WAR GIG
TOP IRISH MUSICIANS TO PERFORM IN MAJOR CONCERT Saturday 19th June -- The Point Depot, Dublin. (Doors Open 5.30pm) It makes me think ... this is but a fraction of how negatively we're seen in the rest of the world. The United States' relationship with Ireland has for the most part been warm, and wasn't this bad even during the Reagan era, and that of Bush I (at the time I found myself having to defend myself in pub "discussions" by saying, quite firmly, "I didn't vote for the bastard!"). I'm glad, at least, that the posters and rallies and campaigns say "Stop Bush", not "Stop America". It's not our war, it's his war; the things he and his ilk are doing are not in my name, and I'm glad they get that. Go mbeidh síocháin linn.
Before the deluge. The Irish Examiner reports that advance preparations for the Shrub visit by An Garda Síochána are entering the territory of the "Draconian" (free registration required):
It emerged yesterday that gardaí are conducting a massive sweep of residents around Shannon town.Trying to intimidate people from protesting? Well, that'd be par for the course for ShrubCo.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Planxty's Live 2004 CD and DVD now pre-ordering! It'll be released on Friday. You can pre-order both the CD and the region-free DVD from Christy's site, or otherwise from your favourite music outlets in Ireland. I'll have to ring Mike at Mulligan's in Galway to see if he'll have the DVD, but at this point I'll do whatever it takes to get that stuff to me as quickly as humanly possible. This is the release of 2004, as far as I'm concerned!
Hmm ... So how does a dinosaur weblog author who stubbornly refuses to go through the trouble of shifting to a cumbersome, off-site hosted and/or expensive weblogging software system add an RSS/XML feed to a weblog he codes by hand?
"Are you trying to freak me out?!" That's what my sister said when I picked up the phone the other day. It seems she had been going through their mail, and started flipping through my brother-in-law's newly-arrived copy of Esquire, the issue with Carmen Electra on the cover (who the hell is Carmen Electra?), June 2004. She started reading a letter to the editor, laughed and thought, "Jeez, this sounds just like Chuck." Then she got to the signature ... and it was Chuck. Moops. It seems that they published my little letter. Several weeks ago our friend Steve sent out an email to a bunch of mutual friends regarding some article Esquire had published about "cities that rock", a list of cities ranked by how good their night life and music scenes are. New Orleans came in eighth. Topping the list was ... Fresno. (*jaw drops*) So, in a fit of semi-mock outrage, I dispatched this missive via their website's email form, which was printed thusly:
Rock This TownOkay, I'm waiting for the hate mail to stream in from outraged Fresnovians. Calm down, you lot -- it was only mock outrage (mostly). I'm sure that Fresno is perfectly lovely. I'll have to go back there and see what the place is like these days. One day. Before I die. If I run out of other places to go. (Maybe.) Oh, and if Dave Wondrich happens to notice this one ... Dave, you know that I would never for a million years think that you would actually serve a cocktail of poisonous methanol to one or more of your colleagues. (Unless they really deserved it.)
Quote of the day. Today's Los Angeles Times features a story entitled "Iraq Setbacks Change Mood in Washington", which begins, "President Bush is hearing increasingly bleak warnings that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is heading for failure -- from Republican and Democratic members of Congress, current and former officials and even some military officers still on active duty. But so far, at least, the White House says it hasn't heard anything that makes it want to change course." Wes sent in what's become both our favorite quote from the article:
We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy, by force if necessary.I'm finding myself agreeing with a conservative Republican? Surely the world is coming to an end!
[ Link to today's entries ]
A lying liar no longer. No, I'm not talking about a member of BushCo (that'd be way too far of a stretch). I'm talking about meself, actually. As of today, the weight listed on my driver's license is no longer the egregious lie it's been for the last 18 years. We're at goal weight minus 8 pounds. Just for grins and giggles, I might just go for 10.
I (heart) Eric Idle. Well, of course, I (heart) John and Graham and Michael and Terry and Terry, too. But today my affection goes out to Eric. Why? Because, of course, he's given us a new song ... "The FCC Song" (3.1 MB MP3 download). Everybody sing! (P.S. -- As Eric mentions, if you play this on the radio it'll cost you a quarter of a million dollars. At least.)
Quote of the day. (Thanks, GreggO!)
You know, back in 2000 a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true." A new low every day. How low will we go? I shudder to think, as every day the news is worse. (Of course, this was just another fraternity prank like all the right-wing nutjobs are saying, right?)
A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.Story via Atrios, and I will echo Lyn's echo of his reminder to the nutball trolls: "I am not responsible for things not done in my name. I am responsible for things that are. Please try to understand the difference."
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Pledge drive time! I know, it's a bit of a stretch, posting this in my weblog. But hey, if it results in even one pledge, one donation, I'm battin' a thousand. KCSN is in the middle of our semi-annual pledge drive, and tonight it's time for me to pitch to raise money for the station and for my program "Down Home". If you're familiar with it, you know that I play roots and traditional music, including lots of Louisiana music, Irish music, plus bluegrass, blues, old-time and Appalachian, classic and alt.country, folk, Tex-Mex and Québecois, roots rock and gospel and klezmer and lots of other roots genres from around the world. It's the kind of stuff you'd never heard on commercial radio in a million years. You also may or may not know that it's commercial-free, and that we have to sing for our supper. You can ring us tonight at (818) 677-3636 during my program, 7:00 - 9:00pm California time, or better still ... pledge online. Amongst the CD premia we'll send you to thank you for your gift are:
Mozaik: Live from the PowerhouseContributions are, of course, tax-deductible. Call tonight! Go online! Pledge! Oh, and the good news is ... we started construction on our new transmitter one week ago today. We should be in test mode very, very soon. Look out Westside, look out Hollywood ... here we come!
Ardent Spirits' Cocktail of the Day. Gary and Mardee Regan's newsletter is out, and contains a luscious-looking cocktail recipe. The only reason we didn't try it last night is because we didn't have one key ingredient (and I'll rectify that soon). It's gettin' hot, and we need to break out the summery drinks. Gary describes it as "heaven ... [t]he flavors marry in complete harmony. This drink is perfect for summertime quaffing." Awrite!
Mischief Stonewalling on Bin Laden/Saudi flights after 9/11 The Daily Mislead reports that "with questions swirling about who authorized allowing relatives of Osama bin Laden to fly out of the country immediately after 9/11, The Hill newspaper is reporting that President Bush is 'refusing to answer repeated requests by the September 11 commission" about the matter.'
Last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged that, even as all foreign and domestic flights were grounded after 9/11, the bin Ladens and other wealthy Saudis were allowed to fly out of the United States. He said that "the flights were well-known and it was coordinated within the government".How long is it going to take for Congressional Republicans to admit that this, plus everything else that's come out, will require official investigation?
Gazing into the abyss. It's been a fairly big day today, unfortunately.
A Corrupted Culture [ Link to today's entries ]
More Planxty news!! Right on the heels of yesterday's post comes this, in this morning's email from the news section of Christy's site:
Planxty's Live 2004 will be available on pre-order from Friday, May 21st.Woohooooooooo! This is fantastic news. No wonder Dónal didn't tour with Mozaik -- he must have been rather busy mixing this. I wasn't expecting it until the fall at least. And the clincher ... "as a region free DVD." Bless ya, lads.
They knew they were war criminals. It gets more and more mind-boggling every day.
The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue.So, those provisions weren't there to make us safer. Those provisions were placed in action to make sure that Shrub saved his own worthless ass from prosecution as a war criminal. I really, really hope it doesn't work.
[ Link to today's entries ]
The Christy Moore Box Set is out. Himself has been working on this for about three or four years -- not counting the spoken intro tracks and counting the hidden tracks, there are 103 songs on the box, and more than half of them are previously unreleased. Whoo. The first thing I did with it was to digitize it, edit the long tracks containing silence and hidden songs into separate songs, identify and label those tracks, correct what needed to be corrected (sloppy mastering on the part of the record company, as at least four songs were at the wrong pitch and speed) and load it into my iPod. Then I listened to the whole feckin' thing, all the way through, beginning to end. Six hours and about eighteen minutes. The recording quality of some of the live tracks is lamentable, which Christy readily admits ("Some sham taped it down the hall with a ghetto blaster under his arm and a microphone stuck up his arse ..."), but some of those performances are hair-raising and unforgettable ("... I'm very glad he took the trouble.") and a perfectly captured moment that helps define Christy's 40-year career. This is an amazing collection; with its 60+ page booklet and all this music and narration, its essential companion is Christy's book One Voice: My Life in Music. There are tracks he did that became hugely popular in concert but were never released, songs he composed almost at the spur of the moment to address injustice (some of which got him in trouble), a song from the Cork concert in 1972 where Planxty first took off (as a support act for Donovan, who had to take the stage after a near-riot broke out from an audience who'd just been driven mad with joy by Planxty, the poor bastard), early and wobbly cassette recordings of some of his first club gigs as a ballad singer in the early 1960s, plus some newly recorded material as well. There's a live version of "Smoke and Strong Whiskey" that's astonishing in its power, even though Christy describes his guitar interplay with his accompanist as "awkward" ("I've often seen pain on the faces of my collaborators"). An outtake from the first Planxty album with the four of them (even Liam) singing "Down in the Valley", a.k.a. "Down in the River to Pray", which you may know from �the soundtrack of "O Brother Where Art Thou?" 25 years later. Two versions, a recent solo recording and 1980s-era live one, of the brilliant song "Hey! Ronnie Reagan", written in protest of Reagan's disruptive visit to Ireland in June of 1984. I could go on for ... well, over six hours. Unfortunately, it hasn't been released in the States, but ring or email my pal Mike Larkin at Mulligan Music in Galway, and tell him I sent ya. If you're into Irish music at all, this is an essential collection. I might not leave every single track on my iPod, but I'll leave most of 'em. Good on ya, Christy.
More good news from Christy. This from the Chat area of his web site:
Donal Lunny is mixing the Planxty recordings from Vicar Street and is confident that we have an album of material. The shows were also filmed and there will be a documentary and DVD later in the year. We are also considering a small number of gigs at the same time next year. The 10 shows barely scraped the surface of the demand and we feel it would be mad to let it disappear again. I'll keep you posted here if there is anything further to report.If they did just a half-dozen gigs in the States, and one of them was west of the Mississippi, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Even if one of them wasn't west of the Mississippi.
Well bejaysis, here we are on Tuesday and civilization didn't collapse. I don't often find myself agreeing with James Lileks except when it comes to regrettable food, but here he is talking some sense:
Does gay marriage threaten heterosexual marriage? Of course! Who knows how many women woke last week to find notes on the kitchen table: "Dearest Wife, now that homosexual sodomy is legal in Texas, I have to go try it. Took the cell phone. Farewell."Sounds like good advice. That, and don't ever cook anything out of a 1950s cookbook. Matt Gunn points out something I was just thinking myself as I listened to NPR's half-hour-long coverage of the marriages yesterday, and the predictably odious reaction from the shrubbery:
Not even our regressive President could spoil the day. He put out a terse statement that began with, "the sacred institution of marriage should not be redefined by a few activist judges." Of course, at nearly the same time as the statement was released, he contradicted himself by praising the activist Supreme Court Justices who unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education 50 years ago. If that court had included the ideological predecessors of Rehnquist (who carried segregationist views well into his adulthood), Scalia, Thomas, and Bush, Brown wouldn't have made it.They're talking about putting the marriage issue to the voters in Massachusetts. I say no. If they had put desegregation to the voters, it would have been crushed in a landslide. Would that have been the right thing to do? "Activist judges" is horseshit. This is why we have a judiciary, folks.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Mazel tov! Yeah, I know ... I'm not Jewish. I'm an Irish escaped ex-Catholic. I just think it's really fun to yell "Mazel tov!" when someone gets married. To every couple who are getting married in Massachusetts today, I wish you all the happiness in the world, all the happiness that you deserve. Writer John Scalzi offers some advice:
Remember to breathe.Amen. (Thanks to Patrick for posting that.)
Yeah, the tax cuts worked. The Canton, Ohio bearings manufacturing plant used by Bush last year as a backdrop to show how well his economic policies were working has been shut down, throwing 1,300 people out of work and causing a "devastating" ripple effect in Canton.
Timken is slashing a quarter of its employees in Canton, and as workers facing layoffs consider their future, the ripple effect is already beginning.Ohio needs to thank the occupier of the White House for his largesse by delivering its electoral votes to John Kerry in November.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Feckin' favicon.ico ... I know, it's a Windows thing. But I see 'em everywhere, and Safari now recognizes them, and they're neat, and I want one, dammit. So I made one. Or at least I tried. I thought I was following the rules, but it took at least a half-dozen tries, and I'm still not sure if it's working properly. So, I'll need y'all's help. Question 1: Do you see the favicon (i.e., the little custom icon in the address bar, immediately to the left of the URL of this site)? If so, which one is it? Is it the "L!" one, or the "GP" one? Question 2: Please go to the root page of this site. Do you see the favicon? If so, is it the "GP" one? If not, do you have any idea what I'm doing wrong? (Argh.)
Hugo Nominees, 2004. I'm pleased to note that I've already read two of the five nominated novels. (Good luck, Rob Sawyer!) Here are all the nominees, with links to where a number of them can be read online (woo!).
The Cocktailian. This fornight's column tells us of a case of jet lag being soothed by an Irish stranger's talk of whiskey. They talk Powers, Redbreast, Bushmills 10 and John Jameson's, then concoct a creamy delight that despite my reticence at quaffing creamy drinks, this one looks intriguing. (The Irishman's concoction, "The Creamery", clocks in at a hefty 9 points for us WeightWatchers types -- I might just want to stick with me 3-point Manhattans and Sazeracs for the time being ...)
Recipe of the day. We got some beautiful red chard in our Organic Express delivery box last week, and in a fit of intellectual and culinary laziness I dashed off to Epicurious to look for something interesting to do with it. I came across one recipe that looked promising, substituted ingredients that I had on hand instead of what the recipe called for, tweaked it and zhuzhed it a little ... and boy was it good. I'd definitely make this again. (Note: You can get dried blueberries at Trader Joe's, if you're lucky enough to have one near you. If you can't find it, use dried red currants, as the original recipe called for. Actually this was originally a bruschetta topping, but I just serve it as a side dish.)
Red and Blue ChardDamn. Just typing that up makes me want to make another batch right now.
The question is now, of course, more valid than ever.
Cartoon of the day. "A Few Bad Apples", by Ted Rall.
"Do as we say, not as we do." Nicked from August:
"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration's diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries."Sheesh.
Conversation ender. From Matt Gunn: "The single best argument against Rumsfeld's resignation? His likely successor may be Paul Wolfowitz." Oy.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Poem of the day. (Thanks to Lambert at Corrente).
Turning and turning in the widening gyre What Josh said. From Talking Points Memo:
As I said earlier today, I don't think I can remember a more shameful spectacle in the United States Congress, in my living memory, than the comments today of James Inhofe, the junior senator from Oklahoma. Clearly, it is part of the RNC talking points now to shift the brunt of the media storm from the abuses themselves to the political storm they've created. But no one that I saw at least rose more naturally to the effort than this man. No one else's heart seemed so matched to the deed, with his snarls at "humanitarian do-gooders" (i.e., the Red Cross) trying to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions.[ Link to today's entries ]
I'll show you some outrage, pal. I nearly lost my composure this morning while listening to the vile rant from Republican senator James Inhofe during the Congressional hearings into the torture of Iraqi prisoners, which nearly caused me to throw my breakfast plate and my radio through the window. I'd call him a swine, but that would be insulting to the noble, beloved animal that provides my bacon.
First of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't because as I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.Well, how about the little factual tidbits courtesy of the International Red Cross, such as the fact that "certain CF military intelligence officers told the ICRC that in their estimate between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake." I understand that Sen. John McCain walked out during Inhofe's remarks. Good on him. I disagree with McCain on a number of issues, but he has my respect.
Inhofe's "outraged at the outrage" and his
other remarks make Sen. Listen, Inhofe, you stupid bastard. We're supposed to be the good guys. By adopting the tactics of the bad guys (even to a lesser degree), it makes us like them. We shouldn't even be there to begin with, but now we're torturing prisoners in the same prison where Saddam tortured prisoners. It defies my ability to reason to understand why these idiots just don't get it. New citizens take an oath to protect our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. People like him fit into the latter category, I think. UPDATE -- Well, it looks like somebody was more outraged by the torture than by the outrage. (Oh, but they were only blowing off some steam, right Limbaugh?) The response was horrifying, truly sickening, and has made the situation much, much worse. As Kos said, "Violence begets violence. This is nowhere close to being over. And assholes like Inhofe merely add fuel to the fire." "Nothing made from soy flour tastes good." For those of you on the Atkins diet, best of luck to you. I've mentioned that it wasn't my own particular weight loss choice (nor my doctor's), but everyone must do what's good for them. If you are doing Atkins, however, I hope you're doing it with real, fresh food and not with all that packaged "low-carb" crapola that's now flooding the market in an attempt to cash in on the latest diet fad. Some intrepid food tasters, I daresay braver than I, took up Salon's challenge to actually try several of these processed foods, from boxed "mashed potato" mix to spaghetti sauce to snack chips and cookies. In order to get rid of the wheat flour, source of many evil, dastardly carbohydrates, almost all of the products seem to use soy flour and soy isolate protein as a substitute. How these products actually taste is rather predictable, given the title of this post ... but the individual comments on the items are great. (It's Salon Premium, so you might have to sit through a commercial to read it. It's worth it.)
It's sort of like what you would imagine plaster would taste like. Salted plaster ... with a vitamin-like aftertaste.Eat. Real. Food. No matter what diet you're on.
Headline of the day. From this week's list of news links on DVD File (which is only in the link name, not in the article, and will probably be gone by next week) ...
Weekend Box OfficeIf only.
Did y'all know (I didn't) that those two
have made nearly forty direct-to-video movies? And while those
movies may seem to be marketed to teenage girls, they seem to actually be
marketed toward the weird guys at the used DVD stores, who get all twitchy
at the mention of their names ... oy. Now they've got their very own
movie in the theatres, which by most accounts is awfully awful
(surprise). I guess the otherwise brilliant Eugene Levy must be building
an addition on to the back of his house, or something ...
A Pentagon briefing paper supplied to Congress after publication of the
Woodward book states that by July 2002, "in the course of preparing for a
contingency in Iraq, U.S. Central Command [Centcom] developed rough
estimates of $750 million in preparatory tasks."
"To the best of our knowledge, the administration failed to follow the law
when it came to keeping the people's representatives fully informed on how
they were spending these dollars," [spokesman for ranking Democrat on
the Senate Appropriations Committe Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) Thomas] Gavin
said.
I wonder if the Republicans in congress are ever going to get sick of
being Bush's bitches?
The arrogance of moral certainty.
Excellent essay
in TIME magazine by Joe Klein:
... [D]emocracy doesn't easily lend itself to evangelism; it requires more
than faith. It requires a solid, educated middle class and a
sophisticated understanding of law, transparency and minority rights. It
certainly can't be imposed by outsiders, not in a fractious region where
outsiders are considered infidels. This is not rocket science. It is
conventional wisdom among democracy and human-rights activists-and yet
the Administration allowed itself to be blinded by righteousness. Why?
Because moral pomposity is almost always a camouflage for baser fears and
desires. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives share a primal
belief in the use of military power to intimidate enemies. If the U.S.
didn't strike back "big time," it would be perceived as weak. (Crushing
the peripheral Taliban and staying focused on rooting out al-Qaeda cells
wasn't "big" enough.) The President may have had some personal
motives-doing to Saddam Hussein what his father didn't; filling out Karl
Rove's prescription of a strong leader; making the world safe for his
friends in the energy industry. The neoconservatives had ulterior motives
too: almost all were fervent believers in the state of Israel and, as a
prominent Turkish official told me last week, "they didn't want Saddam's
rockets falling on Tel Aviv."
Abu Ghraib made a mockery of American idealism. It made all the baser
motives -- oil, dad, Israel -- more believable. And it represents all the
mora complexities this President has chosen to ignore -- all the perverse
consequences of an occupation.
The Winston-Salem-based doughnut maker said Friday that it is cutting its
profit projection for this year by 10 percent because of lower demand for
its high-calorie treats -- which the company attributes in part to the
low-carb diet phenomenon.
The announcement drove its stock price down 23 percent in early trading.
But the educated upper middle class will have NOTHING to do with
donuts.
Mmm... When did "doughnuts" become "donuts"?
I think we have the Dunkin' company to thank for that. Still, it's not
hard to argue that the target customer can't spell the true appellation.
Actually, it's rare that you even SEE the true name anymore.
While some may approve (Eddie Izzard: "But
you spell 'through' T-H-R-U, and I'm with you on that! We spell it
'thruff!'"), I do not.
D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T-S. Dammit.
I'm educated upper middle-class, and I love
'em. (Unfortuately, I'm not really allowed to have them, but that's
entirely beside the point.)
Mmmmmmm, doughnuts ...
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Up in the mornin'
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