With apologies to those who have seen this same list from me elsewhere.
Rivka, of the wonderful Respectful of Otters blog, on cognitive
dissonance and Hurricane Katrina, and
Tom Hayden, writing in the Nation, on what Iraqis really think of the
occupation.
I hate quoting that ravingly antisemitic old misogynist bastard, but he is extremely quotable, and after hearing Michael Brown try to turn the handling of Hurricane Katrina into a partisan issue, this one fits:
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
As cited on Salon:
“I don’t want to make this partisan,” Brown said, delivering the day’s most disingenuous line. “I can’t help it if Alabama and Mississippi are governed by Republican governors, and Louisiana is governed by a Democratic governor.”—Michael Brown
Every day, I wonder just a little more why decent people aren’t rising up and rioting in the streets. Then I remember that it’s because we’re too busy wondering who’s going to be voted off “America’s Next Top Model” next. (And I include myself in that bit of damnation.) But honestly, will the Bushies truly stop at nothing?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course. They’ve already amply demonstrated that they won’t.
It occurs to me that in my lengthy post about my particular attachment to Dolly Varden, I didn’t say a whole hell of a lot about what they sound like. That’s partly because their sound is a little bit hard to describe; for a while, they tended to get lumped in with alt-country/Americana, but that’s not really accurate. I really need to come up with a genre term that describes the style of bands like Dolly Varden and Dolorean—not that the two sound alike at all, just that they’re equally hard to describe. In the case of Dolly Varden, there’s a little twang, lots of melody, and the highly distinctive guitar work of Mark Balletto (who has a fine spinoff band of his own, My Record Player), which is capable of being both shimmery and unexpectedly crunchy, though not usually in the same song. Mostly, there are two words that come to mind when I try to describe the Vardens: “joyous” and “beautiful.” Even when the lyrics are downbeat, which they often are, there’s a sheer joy to the sound of the songs that just lifts the heart up and brings a little ache to the throat. Geez, I wish I had a better vocabulary for this kind of thing, rather than standard rock-crit cliches, but…there’s a lyric in the (happy, upbeat, joyous) song “I Come to You,” from “The Dumbest Magnets,” that goes: “And when my chest is open wide/You could pull yourself inside.” When you listen to it, you feel exactly what Steve is singing: your heart feels so big and full that it could just burst from your body. (Okay, now I’m starting to sound like the plot of “Alien.” Maybe I should quit while I’m behind.)
And beautiful: the melodies, the vocals, the arrangements. Beautiful and sometimes delicate, but in no way wispy or ethereal or frail. Just sheer gorgeousness and gorgeosity, to quote that little droogy Alex. Steve and Diane’s first band, Stump the Host, was kind of a punk band, I guess, but Steve says that it didn’t work so well for him and Diane to sing in that style because they’re both “pretty” singers. And it’s true, they are—both of them. Diane’s voice is full of color and timbre, capable of moving from light and sweet to dark and slightly husky in the same song; Steve’s is soulful and strong, but still, well, pretty.
Argh, enough trying to wrestle an adequate description to the ground. Just go listen to them: there are a number of MP3s on this page of their site.
Moving on: today’s NP list:
1. Michael Berube’s blog, because it’s been a while since I mentioned it, but also because the most recent entry (dated September 23) is exceptionally powerful. There are so many great political blogs out there (along with the crappy ones) that it’s hard to definitively say that any one of them is the best, but I will say that Michael’s is my favorite, bar none. (NB: I get to call him Michael because he was at Columbia when I was at Barnard—he was a year behind me—and though I don’t actually know him, we have mutual friends. In case anyone was wondering.)
2. The Brakes, “Give Blood.”* My online friend Ged has been pimping this UK band for months. I respect his taste, so I listened to some samples online. Liked ‘em pretty well, but wasn’t sure I was going to buy the album. But then it was released in the US, and half of the rest of Postcard starting raving about it too, so I caved in to peer pressure and bought it. And I’m very glad I did. It’s a weird little (and I do mean little: it’s less than half an hour long, which I guess is kind of a raw deal when you’re paying full CD price, but is nonetheless fine with me because I think almost every CD that comes out nowadays, including ones that I adore, is just too damn long) record, full of humor and quirks, but they’re not a novelty band by any means. Mostly, what they are is entertaining, in the best sense. Vastly entertaining, and definitely innovative. But perhaps not as innovative as…
3. Malcolm Middleton, “Into the Woods.” I probably wouldn’t even know about this guy if he weren’t on the Delgados’ label, Chemikal Underground, because I wasn’t familiar with the band he was (is?) in, Arab Strap. Fortunately, though, I’ll listen to anything the Delgados tell me to listen to (though I draw the line at Mother and the Addicts), so I checked out Malcolm’s latest. I ended up buying his first record, the brilliantly titled “5:14 Fluoxytine Seagull Alcohol John Nicotine” (how could you not love a record with a title like that?), and falling in love with it first, because “Into the Woods” was only available on import. When it was released here, though, I bought it right away, and it’s just genius. Maybe it would seem more ordinary if he didn’t have a heavy Scottish (Glaswegian, I think) accent, but I think the accent is only a small part of the whole picture. He takes deeply depressive but also sometimes hysterically funny lyrics and sets them against melodies that are alternately dreamy and just sort of jangly and upbeat, and his voice, which is gruff and talky and not at all sweet, is what ties it all together. Amazing stuff. Sample lyric: “You’re gonnae break my heart and I know it/And if you don’t/You’re gonna break my string of bad luck/And ruin my career.”
4. The first, self-titled David Johansen record, recently discussed here. Hearing a once-beloved record that you haven’t heard in eons is kind of like the reconnection with old friends that I’ve been dwelling on so much here lately: you wonder if memory has put too much of a shiny gloss on reality, and you question whether you’ll still have anything in common. In this case, there was no reason to worry. This is still a great album that doesn’t sound even remotely dated, and I was happy to find that not only do the killer songs that I remember vividly (“Donna,” “Cool Metro,” “Frenchette”) still sound as great as ever, some of the ones I had forgotten (“Pain in My Heart,” “I’m a Lover”) do too. And it’s another blessedly short record, even with the addition of a (totally inessential) bonus track. Of course, it’s probable that I can’t be objective about this record, because of the powerful time-and-place associations with it. But insofar as I can be, I feel comfortable recommending the record.
5. And sticking to following up on that same post, I’ve been treating myself to an episode every few nights of “Butterflies,” and I’m delighted to find that I still love it. It’s odd how much I remembered about it (and some little details that I’d forgotten, or misremembered: for my own satisfaction, I need to correct myself to note that Ria meets Leonard in a restaurant, not in the park—and it’s a very funny scene). I can’t unequivocally recommend it to everyone, I guess, for various reasons: the production values are pretty much nonexistent (I guess the Beeb didn’t have much of a budget for sitcoms in 1978), and it seems kind of stagy at times; you can sort of feel the writing behind the lines as they’re spoken. But they’re often very, very funny lines—I’ve been laughing at the show much more than I expected—as well as incisive and sometimes wistful and heart-tugging. And the acting is marvelous, even if the clothes and hairstyles are comically dated. I haven’t gotten to the more wistful stuff yet; in fact, I don’t think that cropped up much in the first season, which is the only one that’s available so far. But I do still get a little teary when I hear the theme song (a somewhat de-schmaltzed rendition of Dolly Parton’s extra-schmaltzy song “Love is Like a Butterfly”).
Um, I guess I haven’t really gotten the hang of this NP thing yet—these were supposed to be short, simple posts so that I could do them regularly without using up a whole lunch hour. More practice is required, I guess.
*(Lately, I’ve been putting album titles in quotation marks, which makes me a little uneasy, because I’m a Chicago Manual type of girl and at heart I believe that titles should be in italics. But quotes are so much easier to type…So if I decide to go back to italics, I apologize in advance to anyone who is driven crazy by such stylistic inconsistencies. Which pretty much means that I’m apologizing to myself.)
…has been much on my mind lately; it’s even gotten me to watch CNN a couple of times, something I swore off during the election season last year. The main focus of my interest/horror, apart from just being generally depressed at the extent to which this woman is being treated as a political football and denied the right to die in peace, has been the midnight strike by a Congressional combined force of true extremists and cowed moderates giving in to the extremists to tread into an area where Congress has no business whatsoever.
Of course the moral, ethical, and medical issues haven’t escaped my attention either; it’s just that I think there are people who are far better able to comment on those than I am—and maybe none more so than Rivka, of the superb Respectful of Otters blog. I suggest that anyone with even a passing interest in this case read her posts on the subject.
It’s hard for me to be shocked or surprised by anything the US government does nowadays in the name of “homeland security,” but this shocked me: NPR : Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S.
If you can, listen to the audio segment, which is more detailed than the article. According to the reporter’s concluding statement, if the Department of Homeland Security likes the results of this trial, they’ll consider making all non-citizens wear electronic ankle bracelets.
This site is fairly new, I guess, but what a great idea: they’re rating corporations based on political activity. At the moment, the only criterion they’re applying is 2003-04 political contributions, but it looks like they’re (somewhat ambitiously, since it’s an all-volunteer, contributor-supported site) hoping to apply a number of other criteria including business ethics, environmental impact, workers’ rights, and so on. Their database is pretty small so far, but still useful, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on their progress—and making a donation at some point too.
Of course, since I work for a company that gets a 14% rating from them, I can’t be too sanctimonious about my buying choices. And sometimes the choices aren’t so clear-cut; Petsmart gets a 0% rating because of relatively large campaign contributions to the Repugs, but Petco (which they don’t rate) has a terrible track record on animal welfare, and I think it’s easier for me to live with buying from a Republican-leaning company than from a company that does business with known animal abusers. But still, I’m glad to know what my choices are (and if there were any decent mom-and-pop pet food stores around, I’d gladly buy from them, but the ones in this town tend to be filthy and overpriced, and at least one of them that I’ve visited sells puppy-mill puppies). There aren’t a lot of big surprises on the list either, except maybe for some pleasant ones (Netflix gets a high rating, which I wouldn’t necessarily have guessed, and some unexpected companies like FootLocker and Crate and Barrel get very high ratings, e.g.). But I’m glad to have this information gathered in one place, and I look forward to seeing the site grow.
I’ve plugged Michael Berube’s blog before, but apparently he didn’t get enough votes to be a semifinalist for any awards in the Koufax Awards, so I’ll do my bit to get him a little bit more attention, at least among the three people who read my blog.
Education Secretary Demands Removal of Vermont from Nation’s Textbooks had me laughing so hard I had to close the fake screen of my cube for a few minutes. He doesn’t do satirical writing exclusively, but when he does it, he’s completely brilliant at it.
At least there’s a teensy bit of good news today….
CNN.com – Judge: Evolution stickers unconstitutional – Jan 13, 2005
…though call me cynical, but somehow I have a feeling this will be overturned on appeal.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Renegade royal flouts the rules
You know, I’m not sure how deeply offended I’d be if, say, a Hollywood celeb type (even if British or French) dressed up in a Nazi uniform. It would depend on the context, for one thing, and though it would be impossible not to find it at least a little bit offensive, it might not be the disgrace that this is. But Prince Harry is, obviously, a member of the British royal family. Countless numbers of his “subjects” sacrificed their lives or suffered terribly directly because of the Nazis. If he were a politician, there would be calls–justifiable ones, really–for him to step down from his office. But he’s just a spoiled rich boy with a big fancy title, so he thinks he can get away with this kind of outrage.
And an outrage it is, just as Tom DeLay’s implication last week that the horrors of the earthquake, tsunami, and after math were God’s punishment to the heathen Asians for not being Christians. Why he’s still allowed to hold office–and how he dares to call himself a Christian, when nothing he says or does upholds the fundamental principles of Christ’s teachings–is a total mystery to me. At least Prince Harry can hide behind his bloodlines; why is DeLay allowed to hide behind…I dunno, what? Karl Rove’s skirts?
The world is full of many great and wonderful and mysterious things, but it’s also full of inexplicable crap sometimes.
Since last Tuesday, I feel like I’ve been going through Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross’s seven stages of grief, except not in the right order. Wednesday was grief for sure, grief and denial. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, and was on the verge of tears all day. First time in my life an election has affected me that way.
Thursday was acceptance. We lived through 12 years of Reagan-GHW Bush, so we can survive anything. Except survive is exactly what I’m afraid some of us won’t do, in a second imperial Bush presidency. Literal survival just got tougher for US soldiers and our allies’ (all three of them) troops, as well as for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Financial survival isn’t looking so great for those of us who aren’t bigwigs at megacorps, those of us who won’t benefit from more tax cuts for the wealthy (and that’s, what, 98% of us), those of us without health insurance. Emotional survival’s looking bad all over, unless you’re just patiently waiting through all this for the Rapture and the End of Days to arrive.
But still, I told myself on Thursday, we’ll all make it through. Let’s start counting the days until 2008. [sigh]
Friday, fuck all that. Anger kicked in, and denial came back–specifically, denial of the idea that we should just sit back and accept things. We need to start planning, thinking, strategizing for how to change things. Not just avoid making the same mistakes again–though God knows the Dems are good at doing just that–but actually get things right. (And of course, by “we” here, I mean “they,” since I’m not a party organizer. But call me for money when the time comes, please.) When I think of how we can get things right, I think about reclaiming two fundamental notions that played a part in last week’s debacle: patriotism, and moral values. See, I have strong moral values, and so do all the Dem voters I know. We believe in fairness, in justice, in helping our fellow citizens. And moral values had a huge amount to do with why I voted for Kerry and against Bush: one mostly shares my moral values, and the other not only doesn’t, to me, he epitomizes a bankruptcy of moral values, couched in the buzzwords of evangelical Christianity but embodying no *real* Christian values. Hate and intolerance are not moral values. They’re not Christian values.
And when I think about someone who not only mostly shares my values but can speak about them in a genuine and affecting way, I think about Barack Obama. Not in 2008, probably (although I think you have to see him speak before deciding that you’re absolutely opposed to that; the man is so compelling that even though I find some of his policies, particularly fiscal ones, a little too centrist for my tastes, after seeing him at the convention, I’d follow him anywhere). But 2012, for sure.
And till then, who? Not Hillary, though it pains me to say it. Maybe John Edwards, though it might be hard to get the taint of loss off of him. Maybe Evan Bayh. Or maybe someone not quite so centrist. I think the Dems need to avoid becoming more Republican than the Repugs next time around, tempting though it might be to go that way.
So much to consider and plan and imagine. Guess it’s a good thing that we’ll have four years (or at least two) to contemplate it.