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Saturday, August 17, 2002
A Rift Among Godless There is a conflict among the "godless":
American Atheists, the New Jersey-based organizers of the march, has invited "all groups and individuals who sincerely declare themselves to be `Godless Americans' " to be listed as endorsers of the march, a protest against a long list of actions and attitudes considered prejudicial to nonbelievers. Two of the many groups that responded, the Order of Perdition and the United Satanic Convenire, describe themselves as satanist; and satanists, in the view of the Council for Secular Humanism, are insufficiently godless. "Satanism is a religion, with supernatural beliefs and a belief in the occult," said Tom Flynn, the editor of Free Inquiry, published by the council. "They should not qualify as endorsers of an event for Godless Americans." The United Satanic Convenire issued a statement on their website:
....Next up, some atheists have expressed concern about Satanists showing up and waving baphomets, pentagrams, and other occult paraphenalia. I can't speak for all Satanists, but anyone under my org will not be doing so. I could imagine that a few Christians would be more than happy to derail the atheist agenda by posing as Satanic atheists, but I give my word that no one under this org will do so. I've talked to Ellen Johnson, and this march on Washington is specifically to call attention to atheism as a viable disbelief, not to Satanism, Humanism, Objectivism, Nihilism, or any other sub-compartment of atheism. I respect that, and will not in any way attempt to portray Satanism. I was asked to portray atheism in a positive light, that, and that alone, is my goal. Let's also take some time to clarify a few things. Not all atheists are Satanists, and not all Satanists are atheists. Some have a deistic conception of Satanism, (Satan as the "unmoveable mover"), some have a perception of Satan as the dark energy which binds things, some have a definition of Satan as the archetype of the questioning-self, and some have the unfortunate belief that Satan is the one and the same out of the Bible. I don't really consider them Satanists, I consider them Christians playing on the other end of the football field. Same stadium, same cheerleaders, different helmets. The march organizers are trying to smooth things over, but also to make a point:
Groups that use invocations like "Hail Lucifer!" — as the Order of Perdition does — are definitely "not our style," Mr. Buckner said. "That would be just as mistaken as saying "Hail Mary, full of grace."
The Order of Perdition is Part of the Satanic Council. The Order seems to be ecumenical in its own way:
Satanism (Modern & Traditional), Luciferianism,Vampirism,Chaos Magick, The Dark Doctrines,Druidism,Enochian Magick,Egyptian Magick,Thelema and others. We believe in keeping the Old Ways of magick alive as well. We understand that when most people hear the word "Satanism" or "Dark Arts," they envision the sacrifice of humans and/or animals, and they seek to destroy our Path. Free will and free thought are priorities to all members of the Order of Perdition. We also have a respect for life and for one another. Therefore, the violation of another's free will or the deliberate harming of any human or animal, in ritual or otherwise, is strictly forbidden in the Order of Perdition. Acts of this nature have never been and never will be tolerated by the Order of Perdition as a whole. We seek only those who have a strong desire to learn, and who have grown tired of the lies and contradictions of the Christian church -- an institution that exists only to enslave the mass of humanity. The Satanic Magickian of The Order of Perdition seeks his/her Power through True Will and Dedication in the Arts, and he/she rises above all mental poisons to see the world for what it truly is. It appears the atheists are convinced, since both Satanist organizations still appear on the official roster of participating organizations. I want to see the Satanists march next to the Gay and Lesbian Atheists and Humanists (notice they don't mention bisexuals - they'll fuck anything). UPDATE Paul Palubicki has infiltrated Satanic inner circles:
"Dude, some help here would be hot ...and would some non-skanky chicks join The Order for once? Like those chicks in Devil's Advocate? Man, that would totally rule! I mean, damn, David Koresh looked like Wierd Al's ugly little brother and he got all that ass by just reading a Bible and telling them he was like, the Messiah or some shit. If God can help out a homely cracker like that, can't you at least send some of that poontang my way?" Dude, are you telling me I look like Pacino? "No, no way, HoofDude. I just want some high quality tail to come my way. Just once. I'm not asking much." Do I look like a pimp to you? "What?" I said, Do I look like some kind of pimp to you? "N-n-no, Great Dark Dude. I just want to get laid. You're like, supposed to be into all that." Oh, so you think I should spend all my time trying to get you fuckers laid, is that right? I got some heavy shit going on with the Old Fart upstairs, but Junior here wants some bearded clam, so I should just drop all my Heavenly War shit just to help pop your cherry? "If your Dark Powers can't help me get a date or move out my folks, basement, then why am I even serving you, dude?" You know, that's a good fucking question. How the hell am I supposed to be taken seriously and inspire fear in the hearts of Men with ass-clown geeks like you representin' me? I'm supposed to be leading Men's souls to their dooms with Pizza Face the Pied Piper! Tell me why I shouldn't strike yo sorry ass, down muthafuckah! "B-b-b-because no one else will do it?" Damn. Entitlement With the Major League Baseball players strike date set, saturation coverage of the announcement yesterday, and my ongoing preoccupation with the danger of Islamist word and deed, I probably shouldn't have been surprised to have had an oddly vivid dream last night. Despite the fact that I staunchly believe in the need to root out militant Islamism in the most severe manner, I don't want to give the impression that I dehumanize people who happen to have adopted this unfortunate view of the world. And suddenly last night I had a flash of empathy with them. Islamism still must be utterly discredited and rooted out ruthlessly, and those who refuse or are incapable of an ideological transformation may need to be killed before they can kill us - one of their professed goals - but at least I now have a door through which to enter the Islamist mind. In my dream, I sat in the stands at Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians since 1994, in a fast-forward through every winning home game over the past 8+ seasons. Not coincidentally, with the opening of the "Jake" in '94, the Indians began a tremendous run of on- and off-field success, winning six Division titles in seven years between '95 and 2001, reaching the World Series twice, and selling out an outrageous record-setting 455 games in a row. Though they didn't win the World Series, expectation was there for them to do so every year, and it was a resonable expectation at that. That run ended with a thud this year with the clearing out of virtually the entire roster of expensive veterans, with the stated purpose of rebuilding with (cheap) youth over the next few years. So in my dream I saw this riveting panorama of success flash by me and sooth my soul. I realized I had COME TO EXPECT IT: hence my disappointment and outrage, and resentment this year when ownership just threw in the towel and broke up the team. When I woke up, I thought about my dream, and even imagined myself as a Yankees fan and the exceptionalism that would come from a fascistic run of 20 championships between 1923 and 1962, then another run of four titles in five years between '96 and 2000. Imagine the fan's disbelief and horror and disrupted sense of ENTITLEMENT whe the Diamondbacks came back and upset them in the 7th game of hte Series last year: "HOW CAN THIS FUCKING BE???????????? IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS." This all sounded familiar to me:
You see, Western Europe wasn’t the direct inheritor of the cultural climax of Rome. Barbarian invasions and a general lack of urbanization caused a collapse of this area so thorough many local peasants believed the marbled columned ruins were built by gods. The heavily urbanized, and therefore highly literate and well educated, section of the empire was in the East. When the Bedouin exploded out of their wasteland home they conquered an area holding libraries of knowledge ten centuries old. They carried with them a religion and law that emphasized all learning as valuable, and so these libraries were saved, expanded, and eventually bettered in every way. Islam began to be seen by its adherents as a force of history, which was self-evidently better than any other lifeway it encountered. For a thousand years it met, matched, and overcame every obstacle thrown at it, and was better for each challenge. However, for reasons not entirely clear, something went very, very wrong. The last great Islamic empire, the Ottomans, stood at the gates of Vienna for three months in 1688. If they had broken through those walls Europe would've been open before them, and we all might be chanting "God is Great" today. But they didn't, and this watershed event represented a zenith that would not, and in fact could not, be equaled again. In a little more than one hundred years all the rules of warfare would be changed, and for whatever reason the Muslims never got the new playbook. In the real world, this sense of resentment hasn't faded with time in the Islamic world, but has festered and boiled and intensified over the last several hundred years, and spurred by the total collapse of Islamic power with the end of the Ottoman Empire a century ago, has finally come to throbbing venomous head. We still have to lance the head and destroy the infection with extreme prejudice, but at least I can empathize with its origins. Go Tribe. Headline Closet Secrets of the Pros Turns out it's about closets - I wasn't aware that there were closet professionals, although I am certain there are many professionals in the closet. Iraq Etc In the interest of continuity, I have kept all news and opinion on Iraq to one post. Please see here for background and the latest developments. In a Name Dr. Weevil has more on the pseudo-blogo-nym issue. I haven't said anything about it heretofore, but here are my brief thoughts. All blogs are avatars of their creators: they are cyberspace projections of whatever aspects of a person's personality they choose to project. No blogs are "really real," therefore the name attached is simply part of that projection. Just because I call myself "Eric Olsen" doesn't mean that what I write is any more or less "real" than if I called myself "Projectile Vomit" or "Mephistopheles" or "Humbert Humbert." A blog is a persona and the name attached doesn't make it more or less so. If a pseudonym helps someone to get "into character," then that name is more "real" for that blog than the person's birth name. I also have no problem understanding work or personal pressures that may lead a person writing under his/her own name to be "less real" than when working under the umbrella of a pseudonym. Therefore I see "authenticity" as a non-issue. Either the WRITING is authentic or it isn't: the name attached doesn't much matter. I don't much care if there is a disconnect between blog and person because like any work of art, the blog exists on its own, like a cyber-child. With the disconnect inevitable, what difference does it make to place the added layer of a pseudonym? None, to my thinking. Write under whatever name you want, just be interesting and don't suck - a name is just a label stuck on what really counts: the writing. P.S. - As Dr. Weevil notes, it would be a real shame if anyone wre driven from blogging due to pressure to "reveal" themselves. Don't go "Edward." Friday, August 16, 2002
Grace It's been 25 years since Elvis died on the toilet, a big fat freak of 42. He was an old man, but two years younger than I am now. Think about this: Elvis has been dead longer than his career lasted, and I'm including the crappy 70s. Yet the King remains as popular as ever (to the tune of $37 million last year). I would say that the real Elvis has been lost under the tidal wave of Elvis-the-cultural-icon, but that isn't really true because people still listen to his music, and his music is the REAL Elvis. In the car I was listening to NPR's tribute to Presley (they have an excellent page with a wealth of audio and textual resources) in a somberish mood. The Elvis story always makes me melancholy: the revolutionary music with Sam Phillips, the meteoric rise, the "commercialization," the dead period of bad movies in the 60s, the comeback, the decline unto a pathetic death. But then going into the break, they played an extended portion of "Suspicious Minds," and I remembered how - for all his otherwordly gifts - charmingly real and fragile Elvis was, and this was as big a part of his appeal as the wondrous voice and the animal magnetism. Elvis KNEW his movies were mostly shit, his music in the middle-60s shlock, and by the time of his comeback TV special in '68, he was insecure and unsure of his ability to deliver anymore. But deliver he did and the joy of that connection, or rather reconnection, was truly lovable. His best music undoubtedly came from the '50s and early-60s, but the best Elvis was the magical return to grace in '68/'69, capped by the Memphis glory of "Suspicious Minds," his first #1 in seven years and the last #1 of his life. Hearing the stark soul groove highlighted by Reggie Young's curling guitar and Gene Chrisman's light but insistent backbeat, and Elvis's restrained/powerful/yearning vocal - living the lyric, loving the music - almost brought a tear. At that point in his life and career, Elvis and his fans needed each other equally: you can sense the energy flowing both ways, restoring Elvis and rewarding his fans for their faith and support. That moment of equilibrium is the Elvis I love best. Mike Hendrix loves Elvis too:
....Even as a kid of 19 or 20, working in the studio with seasoned pros from New York, LA, and Nashville, Elvis ran the show, no ifs, ands, or buts. When he recorded "Hound Dog" the day after the Allen show, he insisted on doing take after take, and the song evolved throughout from the bluesy grind of Big Mama Thornton's version into the rollicking, savage romp we all know now. A tired and somewhat exasperated Steve Sholes (producer on the session) said after the twenty-sixth take that he thought they had it, but Elvis once again insisted that they keep rolling tape.
New Recruit? Doubting Thomas reviews a veritable library of books here. How about joining Blogcritics.com, Mr. Literary? Commissioner Steve Newly-married Vodka Steve has a creative take on the restructuring of professional baseball:
Call them, say, the Federal League and the North American League. The "joined" leagues will be governed by the all-new Professional Baseball Association, or whatever you'd like to call it. The names aren't important. What is important is that they are completely unaffiliated with the NL, the AL, MLB, the MLBPA, and the umpire's union. No more than 24 cities, 12 in each league, will be allowed to bid for teams. Let's not continue to dilute our pitching talent, and let's get rid of some deadweight players in other positions, too. The election for PBA Commissioner will be held between George Will and Bob Costas. The loser will head up the rulebook-writing team. (Buh-bye DH rule and arbitrary strike zones!) The PBA constitution will state that no team may accept government funding or tax breaks for ballparks, concessions, parking, etc. The PBA will have salary caps and revenue sharing, and the Commissioner will be selected by the same fine sportswriters who vote players into the Hall of Fame -- not by the owners...... UPDATE And not just a thinker - how about this for timing:
The date was set during a conference call among 57 player representatives Friday morning. The vote for the Aug. 30 strike date -- the Friday before Labor Day -- was unanimous, the Major League Baseball Players Association said. If the players walk out, it would mark baseball's ninth work stoppage in the last 30 years and the first since a 232-day strike in 1994 that led to the cancellation of 921 games and the World Series. "Baseball owners and baseball players must understand that if there is a work stoppage a lot of fans are going to be furious, and I'm one," President Bush ( news - web sites) told reporters during his working vacation at his Texas ranch. "It is very important for these people to get together," said Bush, who before he entered politics was a part owner of the Texas Rangers. "They can make every excuse in the book not to reach an accord. It is bad for them not to reach an accord. They need to keep working." At the heart of the negotiations is a proposed payroll tax. Owners of the 30 professional baseball teams say a so-called "luxury tax" will help stem rising player salaries, which average nearly $2.4 million. But the players believe the tax will limit the growth of the salaries because teams would be reluctant to sign big-money contracts if there was a "penalty" tax involved. "The players are committed to reaching a fair and equitable agreement, one which takes into account their views, and not just those of the owners," the players' union said in a statement announcing the strike date. "Needless to say, we are prepared to meet and bargain with the owners' representatives until an agreement is reached." Last Monday the players delayed announcing a strike date after a meeting of their executive board in Chicago. Owners and players seemed in agreement then that they could gain momentum to overcome the sticking points of revenue sharing and the luxury tax. But Friday the league said on its Web site, http://MLB.com, "It is generally believed the last two days of negotiations did not produce the progress toward a new collective bargaining deal that both sides desired." MLB.com said both sides declined to comment about any new developments from Thursday's negotiating session in New York. "But negotiations appear to have slowed considerably," it said, saying no new sessions had yet been scheduled. Rob Manfred, MLB's vice president of labor relations and human resources, said through a spokesman that management is "ready and willing to meet at any time." Whenever that next meeting occurs, some players downplayed that a strike date would necessarily lead to work stoppage in America's pastime. "I'm still cautiously optimistic, probably more cautious," said Atlanta Braves pitcher Tom Glavine. "I don't honestly think there is a specific amount of time that it would take to get something done. "It could take 20 minutes or 20 hours. Whenever someone puts the right offer on the table, we can get going with it. If it takes a bump in the road to get things going again, hopefully we'll start moving in the right direction," Glavine said "If they strike, it's going to be a disaster," said Arthur Bernstein, sports consultant and former executive director of the advocacy group United Sports Fans of America. "Fans will see this as arrogant and egotistical on both sides. "Back in 1994 fans were receptive to being re-inspired," he said. "You had the Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa home run battle. You had Cal Ripken. You can't count on that anymore. "There is a lot more competition for the sports dollar and the entertainment dollar. It's a different world." Management wants to tax the amount of payrolls above $100 million by 50 percent. The union wants the threshold at $137 million. Other issues still to be settled include a minimum players' payroll of $45 million per team, drug testing and salary arbitration. Why He Does It There has been a fair amount of talk this summer, including here, about some of the dark side of blogging: time and energies spent, neglect of other duties and pleasures, and the like. David Hogberg has a very nice piece of the positive side of blogging - his glass is more than half-full:
....2. Practice makes perfect. Well, not quite perfect, but there is a lot of improvement. I’ve noticed that the more I do it, the more I look for new ways to express ideas, for ways to shorten what I write, and so forth. ....3. Discipline. Man, has blogging ever forced me to discipline myself. I can’t regularly put out the Daily Diatribe, along with all the other posts, unless I force myself to limit my procrastination and just get on with it. ....4. Engaged in the “Debate.” Blogging makes me feel like I’m thoroughly engaged in the debate over ideas. I get to contribute my two-cents worth on the issues of the day, and some people actually read what I say! ....6. New acquaintances. If you’re not like me—someone who works behind a desk all day and is a little shy to boot—you may not realize how important this is. But I’ve met a lot of really nice people who have similar interests. Another Blow We reported last week on the conflict developing between the major labels and the independent promotions companies over fees paid to get songs played on the radio. RCA and Atlantic had reduced fees paid as of last week, now Universal is slashing fees by 50%:
The action by Universal Music, owned by media conglomerate Vivendi Universal, comes as lawmakers and federal agencies are trying to determine whether current independent promotion tactics violate payola laws, which bar radio stations from playing songs in exchange for money or anything valuable without identifying the transaction. ....Record companies have complained to the Federal Communications Commission and lawmakers about giant radio conglomerates using their muscle to ratchet up promotion prices. Sources said Universal Music Group--which consists of the Interscope, Def Jam, MCA, Universal Records and Lost Highway labels--pays more than $50 million annually to independent promoters to pitch songs by such stars as No Doubt, Ashante, Mary J. Blige and Nellie to radio stations. Universal declined to comment. But sources at the company said its labels notified promoters Tuesday that they are slashing promotion payments 50% to about $200,000 a song. Universal's labels also plan to reduce the number of radio stations nationwide for which promoters will be able to collect fees for pitching their songs, sources said. From the Mind of the Bunny The Big Bunny has some innovative thoughts on integrating bloggers with the mainstream media - makes a lot of sense:
Don't want to fool with the copy? I'll tell you what. Find a blogger, there's at least one out there who could use the work, ok two, and pay them the money you'd pay an intern. Give them ftp access to some remote corner of your site, and then send them a copy of the story 10 minutes before it's uploaded. At the bottom of each story, put a link to the blog in and say "For more information, see our blog at http://fakereutersaddress.com" The blogger will find the extra info and post it beneath a link back to the original story. In less than a month it'll be the most popular page on your site. Don't want to go to the trouble of finding a blogger? Would you prefer round-the-clock updates? Well, contact an organization of bloggers, and they'll contract out the updates to bloggers from all over the world. It's cheap. Most do this for nothing anyway, so they'll do it for next to nothing. Iraq Today Pressure is building on all sides regarding Iraq: if we could direct all of that brain power, we could vaporize Saddam and call it a day. What is the basic case against Saddam? It hasn't changed much since this BBC report from March, other than with every passing minute the likelihood of disaster inexorably grows:
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world. Weaponry "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade." Washington and London say this accumulation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) poses a threat not just to the region but to the wider world. But exactly what kind and how many weapons Baghdad has is not known, as UN weapons inspectors have not been in the country since December 1998. A report published by the US State Department earlier that year, said that Iraq had the potential to develop WMD. "Enough production components and data remain hidden and enough expertise has been retained or developed to enable Iraq to resume development and production of WMD." It is believed, the report adds, that Iraq maintains "a small force of Scud-type missiles, a small stockpile of chemical and biological munitions, and the capability to quickly resurrect biological and chemical weapons production". In the same document the State Department says that "Baghdad's interest in acquiring or developing nuclear weapons has not diminished". A UN report released in March last year suggested that Iraq still had chemical and biological weapons - as well as the rockets to deliver them to targets in other countries. Iraq denies this. And, on Wednesday, US diplomats said photographs taken by spy satellites show that trucks imported by Baghdad for civilian purposes have been converted into mobile missile launchers. Arms control "This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world." Saddam Hussein agreed to allow UN inspectors into the country as part of the ceasefire accord that ended the Gulf War in 1991. But the body in charge of the inspections, Unscom, complained it was not allowed to its job and was withdrawn in 1998 ahead of a bombing campaign by the US and the UK. Iraq, meanwhile, accused the commission's monitors of spying for Washington. After its withdrawal, Unscom was replaced by Unmovic (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) which has not been allowed into the country.
In what appeared to be another bid by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites)'s government to stave off a possible U.S. strike, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told Abu Dhabi Television in an interview Iraq was "open for dialogue" with the United Nations.
Earlier this month, it invited chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix to visit Baghdad for technical talks. But Annan rejected the offer, saying these talks could only take place after inspectors returned. ....Ramadan said Iraq was taking the U.S. threats seriously, but he added Iraq was encouraged by the growing European and Arab opposition to any strike. "We do not ignore these threats. We are preparing all that we can prepare with all of our capabilities," he said. "Should it (the attack) take place they would find a new situation and a new confrontation that they have not faced anywhere." But Ramadan also repeated that Baghdad was willing to start a dialogue with Washington so long as it was without provisos. "I do not think we have ever rejected direct dialogue with the U.S. administration...(provided that) there are no terms. We want a dialogue in which each of us respects the opinion of the other and does not interfere in internal affairs," he said Israel - immediately in the line of fire and likely first target of an Iraqi assault - says get them NOW:
Israeli intelligence officials have gathered evidence that Iraq is speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons, said Sharon aide Ranaan Gissin. "Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose," Gissin told The Associated Press. "It will only give him (Saddam) more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction." ....As evidence of Iraq's weapons building activities, Israel points to an order Saddam gave to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission last week to speed up its work, Gissin said. "Saddam's going to be able to reach a point where these weapons will be operational," he said. Gissin said Israel was not seeking to dictate the timing of a U.S. military campaign but said that, faced with the threat of one, Saddam was fast developing weapons.
"It's understood," Myers said, without elaborating. "We understand the point." Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said earlier Thursday that he would not stand idly by in the event of an Iraqi attack against Israel. Eleven years ago, Iraq fired Scud missiles against Israel during the Gulf War. Israel did not retaliate, bowing to U.S. pressure. Then President George H. W. Bush was concerned that Israeli counter-measures against Iraq could prompt Arab countries to pull out of the international coalition that had taken up arms against Iraq.
Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict--which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve--in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest. Even without Israeli involvement, the results could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam's strategic objectives. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists. Conversely, the more progress we make in the war on terrorism, and the more we are seen to be committed to resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue, the greater will be the international support for going after Saddam.
Second, it needs to show that it has a credible military option even if the Saudis and Kuwaitis refuse to participate in a war on Iraq. If the U.S. military attacks strictly from the north, there is some possibility that Iraq might strike at Jordan. As a key ally and buffer between Iraq and Israel, the United States can't risk this. More important, the U.S. military will face the danger of SCUD missile launches from western Iraq as it did in 1991, and it needs Jordan as a base for suppressing the SCUDs. Since the feasibility of the Iraqi plan is coming under heavy scrutiny in the Pentagon and Congress, letting everyone know that Jordan is in is critical. Jordan has a number of reasons for supporting U.S. policy. The most important is that the government is deeply concerned by both the rising influence of radical Islam in its long-time antagonist Saudi Arabia and the radicalization of the Palestinians....
Even under President Clinton's weak leadership in foreign policy, the US was able to bring its allies into line over bombing in Bosnia and Kosovo, and neither China nor Russia used their veto powers. This is how the US "playbook" for managing international opinion runs. At first, US policy appears lonely and extreme. The debate is constructed around the idea that the US does not want to be restricted by the UN, which is indeed true. When the US magnanimously decides that it will accept some form of UN blessing, there is a carefully orchestrated sigh of relief that America is returning to the multilateral fold. Britain will be first in line to agree. Russia, which has no interest in a direct confrontation with the US and needs its economic support, including membership of the World Trade Organisation, will quickly follow. Without Russian opposition, France will not want to use its veto. China has a consistent policy of abstention.
Back to Scowcroft, he, like the Guardian leftwinger (strange bedfellows?), sees "instability," "disorder," threats to the "international system" as the greatest threat of all:
Apparently Scowcroft isn't the only Republican getting antsy about Iraq:
....Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska said that Secretary Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, had recently told President Bush of their concerns about the risks and complexities of a military campaign against Iraq, especially without broad international support. But senior White House and State Department officials said they were unaware of any such meeting. Also today, Lawrence S. Eagleburger, who was briefly secretary of state for Mr. Bush's father, told ABC News that unless Mr. Hussein "has his hand on a trigger that is for a weapon of mass destruction, and our intelligence is clear, I don't know why we have to do it now, when all our allies are opposed to it." Last week, Representative Dick Armey, the House majority leader, raised similar concerns.
"Any postponement of an attack on Iraq at this stage will serve no purpose," Gissin told The Associated Press. "It will only give him (Saddam) more of an opportunity to accelerate his program of weapons of mass destruction."
"Military intervention should be attempted only if we are willing to sustain such an effort for however long it is needed," he added. Far from ruling out military intervention, Mr. Kissinger said the challenge was to build a careful case that the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction calls for creation of a new international security framework in which pre-emptive action may sometimes be justified.
"I think Brent just got it wrong," he said by telephone from France. "The failure to take on Saddam after what the president said would produce such a collapse of confidence in the president that it would set back the war on terrorism." Mr. Perle added, "I think it is naïve to believe that we can produce results in the 50-year-old dispute between the Israelis and the Arabs, and therefore this is an excuse for not taking action."
Such discussions, the official added, would have a sobering effect on the war-planners. Lastly, we are hearing from the military structure itself:
As Lord Salisbury once put it, "If you ask the soldiers, nothing is safe." To which the politicians must respond, "neither is inaction." It is the job of a political leader to take into account the soldier's reservations, to probe for differing opinions and press for innovative solutions.
Saddam needs to go - all agree, but he needs to go the sooner the better. The Israelis - who have to most to lose - say Saddam is only becoming more dangerous as the days go by. We have all the international support we need - whether its expression is tacit at this point or not - and "instability" is the very best thing that can happen in the region, a region mired in festering stability: the festering autocratic stability that has produced violent militant Islamic fundamentalism. It is time to lance the wound, expose the infection, and begin the healing process as quickly as possible. UPDATE Gene Healy says Iraq isn't Vietnam and Donald Rumsfeld isn't Robert McNamara unless it is:
MEANWHILE Bill Quick reported, as of Friday afternoon (ET), operations are already under way in and around Iraq:
Stop and think for a moment. We've got PR releases from Centcom announcing the bombing of Iraqi "communications centers." We're got debkafile rumors of Baghdad flyovers. We've had several rumors of Turkish SOF and US forces inside the borders of Iraq. How, exactly, is this different from an attack and invasion of Iraq? It might not yet be "hot" to the level that Desert Storm reached, but I think you can certainly call it war. Via InstaPundit, GedankenPundit ponders geography after Saddam:
I suppose that folks are worried about the "power vacuum" that would appear should Iraq break up. But let's think out of the box. Is breaking up Iraq such a bad idea? If these groups really detest each other, what is the benefit in forcing them together into a single country? Doing so just encourages each group to try to dominate the political scene, since no group wants to live under a government they don't control. That, in turn, sets up a situation in which the most vicious groups end up seizing control of the government, since they are the only ones ruthless enough to do what has to be done to achieve such a goal. So if forcing mutually intolerant ethnic groups to share a government breeds totalitarianism, why are we so afraid of breaking up Iraq and giving each group its own country to run as it sees fit? UPDATE Jim Henley's opinion was not transformed by my magical words:
A couple of thoughts: You are pretty hard on the Bush I people for their supposed mistakes. I find this an interesting trope among the hawks. It amounts to, It's not that intervention was bad, we just haven't intervened enough. It's exactly like enthusiasts for socialism - when one market intervention fails to solve the original problem and creates a new one, they argue for new interventions to fix the new problems. Viz. The War on Drugs and the ever-expanding list of "crimes" it requires (paying cash for things, buying grow lights, owning property where someone uses or sells drugs etc.) I have no doubt that when conquering Iraq fails to bring the new millenium, the hawks will say that the problem is that we haven't conquered Iran; when we are still somehow not safe, it will be proof that we need also to conquer Saudi Arabia; when that still doesn't do the trick; Syria, Indonesia, and who knows who else. The order may, of course, change, but the "lesson" that the usual suspects draw will be the same: We haven't used enough force yet, but this next intervention will do the trick. Honest. It never seems to occur to the hawks that maybe, just maybe, the original Gulf War was fought as well and intelligently as possible and that what subsequent events show is that it was a bad idea in the first place. I apologize for not being more positive. Jim's argument would appear to be that of the slippery slope: that bad ideas inspire ever-expanding efforts to implement them, a task that can never be completed because the idea was flawed in the first place. He mentions such flawed notions as socialism, the War on Drugs, and the Gulf War as examples of flawed ideas alibied by their proponents as having "failed" due to lack of sufficient rigor in application. But this doesn't tell anything specific about whether or not forcible regime change in Iraq is a good idea or not. It just tells us that Jim doesn't like the Gulf War, socialism, or the War on Drugs. I reiterate that Saddam is dangerous to us and others, that he is only growing more so, that those who have to most to lose from an aggressive Iraq - namely Israel - are all for regime change NOW despite the fact that military action by us will almost certainly precipitate hostile acts toward THEM, and the fact that Saddam has illegally barred weapons inspectors from doing their job for five years makes military action on our part legal and warranted from an international standpoint. ANY possible fallout from a deposed Saddam can only be better than the fetid stability reigning now, including the breakup of Iraq. It is only gravy that removing Saddam, the most powerful of the Islamic dictators, will send a very strong signal to other Islamic dicatators that their end is nigh, that the caliphate is not returning, that it is time to join the rest of mankind in the 21st century, and that Allah does not support totalitarian theocracies, nor secular totalitarian regimes for that matter. Claiming that the Gulf War was conducted as well as it might have been, that it was a failure, and therefore the IDEA behind it must have been faulty is clever but itself a flawed concept. It seems rather self-evident that military action against Saddam's Iraq was necessary and inevitable under the circumstances of his military aggression and rhetoric, and that the job should have been completed with his ouster. It is historical fact that this final action was not pursued due to fears of "INSTABILITY" in the region (thanks to reader Tom). Stability as an inherent good is grossly overrated by diplomats, such as our State Department, whose perceived self-interest is served by stability regardless of the pathology of the status quo. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking ruled the day at the penultimate moment of the Gulf War, and we have been paying the penalty ever since. Setting the matter right, now, is called "learning from your mistakes," not perpetuating a bad idea. It's a matter of perspective. SATURDAY AFTERNOON
It said in a statement the planes struck civilian and public buildings in Dhi-Qar province, 375 km (250 miles) south of Baghdad. Iraqi air defenses fired at the attacking planes, forcing them to return to bases in Kuwait, it said. There was no immediate confirmation of the strike from Britain or the United States. U.S. and British planes had attacked targets in the south on Wednesday, wounding four civilians, the Iraqi air force said this week. Britain confirmed that raid, saying it was launched after a mobile tracking radar unit had locked onto the aircraft, but said it was not aware of any casualties. Saturday's raid was the 27th this year by U.S. and British warplanes in northern and southern "no-fly zones" of Iraq, set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from attack by Baghdad's forces. The raids have increased in recent months amid mounting threats from President Bush to oust President Saddam Hussein. Washington accuses Baghdad of developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Iraq denies the charge and Saddam has said any U.S. invasion of his country is doomed to fail.
American diplomats, CIA officers and Pentagon officials more frequently slip into northern Iraq to consult groups there. A coalition of opposition groups is getting long-delayed money to run anti-Saddam newspaper and television campaigns inside Iraq. And a heavy schedule of meetings around the world is increasingly pulling together those who have long hoped for Saddam's demise. "The Bush administration has given the opposition more hope than they've had at any time in the past 10 years," said Phebe Marr of the Middle East Policy Council. "It has generated a lot of activity, there's no question about it." What will come of it is an open question. ....Much of what the administration and opposition groups are talking about and planning is secret. But officials have said Bush signed an order early this year directing the CIA to increase support to opposition groups. The CIA has declined to comment, but such aid could include money, weapons, intelligence, training and equipment. For example, Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party in the north of Iraq, was brought in April to a CIA training ground in southern Virginia, where he was asked for permission to set up CIA stations in northern Iraq in exchange for a couple of armored vehicles and some militia training, according to an opposition source. He rejected the offer, reportedly because it came from CIA operatives rather than the president. But Americans from various government agencies have been quietly working for years in the Kurdish areas of Iraq, autonomous zones protected since 1992 by the U.S. and British-patrolled no-fly zones. The KDP and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan each have militias as well as bases and airfields there that could be useful if U.S. forces attack Iraq. Outside Iraq, leaders of those two Kurdish parties met with U.S. officials for three days in April in Germany to talk about how to get rid of Saddam and what kind of government would follow, officials said. Five opposition groups came to meetings in Washington in June. Several dozen former Iraqi military officers who defected met in London in July. And six opposition groups visited the White House complex a week ago for a video conference with Vice President Dick Cheney and face-to-face meetings with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers. Meanwhile, the State Department said Thursday it will spend $8 million for various opposition activities, including resumption of broadcasts to viewers inside Iraq — a campaign suspended in early May because of disagreements between the State Department and the London-based Iraqi National Congress. Despite improved relations with the INC, its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, said there have been no talks this past week on something the group has long wanted — training for its fighters. So far 164 Iraqi dissidents have been trained by a contractor hired by the Pentagon. The INC is an umbrella group formed in 1992 to bring together a number of disparate groups, including Kurds, Shiites and exiles. It has received millions of dollars in aid — but since diplomats and intelligence officials have been wary about the group, it has gotten only a small percentage of the $97 million approved by Congress five years ago. Still, moving toward Bush's goal of regime change has "forced different points of view in the administration to be molded into one," said Charles Duelfer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said both sides — the administration and the opposition — are more unified than in previous years. Despite the progress, opposition figures still don't have a firm coalition "that could withstand the pressure of war and government," said former ambassador Edward Walker of the Middle East Institute. Much of the discussion in meetings with the opposition still is aimed at getting the fractious groups to pull together. "These people all have different constituencies, they have different interests," Walker said, questioning whether they would cooperate in a post-Saddam government. He said the thrust of the State Department effort has been in trying to turn their attention to how the country will be run and who will replace Saddam. "I would say there has been some progress," Walker said. "But there's still a long way to go." Thursday, August 15, 2002
Woodstock 33rd Fellow Blogcritic Sheila Lennon metaphorically went back to Woodstock for today's 33rd anniversary:
Twenty years later, I was lifestyles editor of The Providence Journal, and the task of doing the 20th anniversay package fell to me by default, since I'd been there. I interviewed 50 other Rhode Islanders who were also there, and published a 3-day series on the concert. ....1989, Bethel N.Y.: The paper sent me back to Woodstock for the 20th anniversary, but not much was going on. Nevertheless, I hitchhiked out Saturday night to file for Sunday's page one from a pay phone in a bar. It was next to a blaring jukebox, I was using acoustic couplers ("rubber duckies") and the low-battery light on the Radio Shack laptop was flashing. Amazingly, it worked. Over the course of the next week, I saw wire stories suggesting the real action in Bethel was still building. On a hunch, I drove back to Bethel the following weekend, and filed two more stories. Of "Evil" and "Jingoism" In last Sunday's NY Times, the Week In Review section did a "Word For Word" on 9/11-related songs:
To say that Mr. Young's call "You got to turn on evil/When it's coming after you/You've gotta face it down/And when it tries to hide/You've gotta go in after it/And never be denied" is jingoistic as reported in "Word for Word/September Songs" by Tom Zeller is beyond belief and defies logic. Had the martyrs of Sept. 11th not taken the steps that brought Flight 93 crashing down, we do not know how many more thousands more good people would have been killed. In "Let's Roll", the words that the wife of one of the passenger's heard him say during his cell-phone call home just before the crash, Young simply and starkly imagines the doubts, the fears and finally the determination that must have driven our brothers and sisters to action against the, yes, evil men determined to destroy innocent lives. The last line of his song is a prayer that every one of us has uttered in our hearts: "Let's not let our children/Grow up fearful in their youth/Time is runnin' out/Let's roll!" God help us and our children if we are not able to brand as evil those who would destroy us and work for their defeat anywhere and everywhere in the world. It would appear that the unnamed critic labeled the song "jingoistic" because Young used the word "evil" to describe the terrorists. Critics, good relativistic postmodernists in the main, are made deeply uncomfortable by moral judgments of any kind, and especially ones as stark and "simplistic" as "evil." I wish the song worked a little better myself, but I have nothing but respect for Young's willingness to take a stand and pass moral judgment, whether it was "cool" or not; and I have nothing but contempt for those who would denigrate him for doing so. Two More Years Our friend in Greece harbors grave doubts about the 2004 Athens Olympics:
After months of headlines questioning whether building and other deadlines would be met, the International Olympic Committee ( news - web sites) (IOC) switched gears to praise Athens for a new sense of momentum as the two-year countdown to the event started this week. "It was clear from the IOC's visit (to Athens) at the end of June that there is a heightened level of interest in the Games from the general public ...," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said in a statement to Reuters. "With two years to go before the start of the Games, momentum is very much gathering pace as ATHOC's organization moves from a planning to an operational phase." The statement signaled Greece had at last put behind it construction holdups and bureaucratic hurdles that at one stage had raised questions about whether the event should be moved. Western Roots of Militant Islam? John Gray surveys the roots of militant Islam in the Independent:
Islamic fundamentalism is not an indigenous growth. It is an exotic hybrid, bred from the encounter of sections of the Islamic intelligentsia with radical western ideologies. In A Fury for God, Malise Ruthven shows that Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian executed after imprisonment in 1966 and arguably the most influential ideologue of radical Islam, incorporated many elements derived from European ideology into his thinking. For example, the idea of a revolutionary vanguard of militant believers does not have an Islamic pedigree. It is "a concept imported from Europe, through a lineage that stretches back to the Jacobins, through the Bolsheviks and latter-day Marxist guerrillas such as the Baader-Meinhof gang". In a brilliantly illuminating and arrestingly readable analysis, Ruthven demonstrates the close affinities between radical Islamist thought and the vanguard of modernist and postmodern thinking in the West.
Political Islam emerged partly from an encounter with western thought, but also from revulsion against the regimes founded in Egypt and elsewhere in the aftermath of European colonialism. In Jihad, Gilles Keppel argues al-Qa'ida turned to global terrorism because, like fundamentalist groups in other countries, it has failed to achieve its revolutionary goals on home territory.
In their unshakeable faith that one way of living is best for all humankind, the chief protagonists in the dispute about political Islam belong to a way of thinking that is quintessentially western. As in Cold War times, we are led to believe we are locked in a clash of civilisations: "the West" against the rest. In truth, the ideologues of political Islam are western voices, no less than Marx or Hayek. The struggle with radical Islam is yet another western family quarrel. Much has been made of Islam's hegemonic tolerance, but this was an imperious tolerance, a tolerance grounded in a smug sense of superiority, not out of respect for other traditions or points of view, and certainly not out of a sense that other religions were worthy of respect in their own right. The germ of Islamist universalism was written in the Koran, not by "Marx or Hayek." Scott Johnson writes:
So it's important to note that unlike Western Europe, the cultures of Islam have fifty generations of being the paragon of western cultural achievement. This supremacy lasted so long it invaded every part of their culture, became part of the fabric of their existence. Islam ended up being all about looking to the past, because the past was where everything important was. In the space of just a little more than a hundred years, just two human lifetimes, this entire world order got stood on its head. Europe didn't just field bigger armies, or figure out better tactics. Europeans figured out how to build fighting machines which were literally undefeatable by anything the cultures of Islam could create. Napoleon humiliated the Mamaluks in Egypt at Shubra Khit and Imbabah in 1798, and the world would never be the same. Because Europe didn't just create new ways of fighting wars, they created new ways of living life, of thinking, of believing. Liberal democracy, capitalism, and material science didn't just make Europe supreme, it made Islam irrelevant. In a little more than a century fully one thousand years of history and achievement simply ceased to matter. The Trouser Returns I am so happy to see good bud and legendary rock journalist Ira Robbins' Trouser Press site back up and rocking. Even though there's nothing new since '96, I STILL use my Trouser Press Guide to 90s Rock ALMOST EVERY DAY to look some obscure band or record up, and his discography is still the best for modern rock to be found anywhere. Need to know everything about Cleveland's My Dad Is Dead? Head to the Trouser Press:
My Dad Is Dead ... and He's Not Gonna Take It Anymore (St. Valentine) 1985 (Ger. Houses in Motion) 1990 Peace, Love and Murder (Birth) 1987 (Ger. Houses in Motion) 1991 Let's Skip the Details (Homestead) 1988 The Best Defense (Homestead) 1988 The Taller You Are, the Shorter You Get (Homestead) 1989 Shine EP7 (Scat) 1990 Chopping Down the Family Tree (Scat) 1991 Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Scat) 1993 Hello EP (Hello Recording Club) 1995 For Richer, For Poorer (Emperor Jones/Trance Syndicate) 1995 Shine(r) (Emperor Jones/Trance Syndicate) 1996 Everyone Wants the Honey but Not the Sting (Emperor Jones) 1997 Actually the work of a person rather than a band, My Dad Is Dead's voluminous output has plainly explored the troubled waters of the soul, both personal and philosophical, for nearly a decade. Ohioan (but recent transplant to North Carolina) Mark Edwards writes, plays and sings his material with instrumental and vocal help from a floating gene pool of fellow Cleveland musicians (Prisonshake's Chris Burgess has also produced the bulk of his recordings). My Dad Is Dead, largely inspired by Edwards' paternal loss, is a compelling, hypnotic debut that ranges from thrashy aggression to supple melodicism to industrial gloom, all unified by the downbeat lyrics. The album's weak link is Edwards' flat singing (which has since improved). Peace, Love and Murder and Let's Skip the Details show considerable growth; The Best Defense, which assembles outtakes and 4-track home recordings, is unessential but contains some fine moments, including three surprisingly harmonious instrumentals. The Taller You Are, the Shorter You Get (a double LP) brings Edwards to a new plateau of ambition and accessibility. His lyrics have grown less morose and more philosophical, and he sings them with newfound expressiveness. Leaving the Homestead label, Edwards released an impressive eight-song double-7-inch, Shiner (later expanded by a dozen previously unreleased tracks from the same sessions and elsewhere and reissued as Shine(r) by Emperor Jones/Trance Syndicate), and then his first full-length on local indie Scat. Packaged in a magnificent die-cut sleeve (on both LP and CD issues), Chopping Down the Family Tree boasts its fair share of Edwards' familiar lyrics and dense, metallic instrumentation, but the fog hovering over his head has lifted a little further. The album's first half revels in gritty guitar sounds and biting lyrics (the title cut proclaims "The strength of the family can be an illusion when built on control and based on collusion"), while the second blooms under the first's dark waters, reaching a tentative cheerfulness, both lyrical and musical, on "Without a Doubt" and "Shine" (a song not featured on the EP of that name)..... Here's a bit on the history of TP online:
What happened to the first trouserpress.com? The site we created in partnership with SonicNet in 1997 was unceremoniously taken down at the end of 1999, after SonicNet was acquired by MTVi. They were very nice about sorting things out with us, and that enabled us to create the second TrouserPress.com, which took a frighteningly long time to do. This version is owned and operated independently, joining the content of the old site (but not the bulletin boards, which got lost on a server somewhere) with a second section of more modern reviews for your edification and irritation that has never been online before.
KIll It This is another reason to kill the death penalty in the U.S.:
"The president of the republic has made the decision to cancel his business trip that would have taken him through four cities of the state of Texas," Rodolfo Elizondo, the president's spokesman, told a late evening news conference. "This decision is an unequivocal sign of our rejection of the execution of the co-national Javier Suarez Medina." Texas executed Suarez, 33, a Mexican citizen, earlier on Wednesday for the 1988 murder of an undercover Dallas police officer despite pleas for his life from 12 Latin American nations and two in Europe -- Spain and Poland. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson joined the clemency appeals on Tuesday, urging in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell that the matter be reviewed. "All of these pleas were rejected by Texas state authorities," said Elizondo. He expressed Fox's regrets to the Mexican community in Texas for the cancellation of the trip but said it would have been "inappropriate under the circumstances" for the visit to have gone ahead. The fact that Suarez's citizenship status was unclear is immaterial:
But Texas officials said they weren't clear that Suarez, who spent most of his life in the United States, was Mexican. The U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal by Suarez, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry denied a reprieve. Wednesday night, authorities in Huntsville gave Suarez a lethal injection as he sang the hymn "Amazing Grace."
The execution — and the government's last-ditch efforts to stop it — dominated headlines across Mexico, where photographs of and interviews with the round-faced, innocuous-looking Suarez turned up in most newspapers and on major television stations. "His straight brow and mouth speak of a person who almost always acted in an upright manner," columnist Sergio Jaubert wrote in the newspaper Milenio on Wednesday. But a protest outside the U.S. Embassy as the execution was carried out drew only four people. "I don't understand how Americans can say, 'In God we trust,' and then in God's name kill somebody," said one of the protesters, 46-year-old Guillermo Marin Franco.
Is not a deterrent to crime Is unfair in its application Is irreversible Fosters barbarity in society by sanctioning killing I either don’t care about, or disagree with their other concerns that the death penalty: Is unjustified retribution Costs more than incarceration Is less popular than the alternatives Makes us look inhuman and anachronistic internationally My opposition to the death penalty turns on two central issues: 1) the system is human and thereby flawed, and death is irreversible. 2) the death penalty sanctions the taking of human life by our collective entity, the government, thereby both raising the absolute level of violence and lowering the acceptable moral threshold for violence in our society. If self defense (as in a just war) isn’t involved - and protection of society by incarceration without possibility of parole is virtually as secure as protection via death - then an eye for an eye is simple revenge, not justice. If the death penalty only marginally better-protects society from violent criminals than incarceration, and if it isn’t a deterrent, then there is no practical reason that can overcome that fact that innocent people have and will be irrevocably terminated. While you can’t give innocent people back the time they have erroneously spent in prison, at least you don’t have to dig them up to tell them they have been exonerated. It is this simple. I won’t bog you down with statistics, please refer to the above linked ACLU site for stats and lawyerly arguments. It also concerns me that the penalty is unfairly administered: the below from the ACLU report is more than enough to convince me of this.
The GAO concluded: "Our synthesis of the 28 studies shows a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty after the Furman [1972 Supreme Court decision that declared "the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty… constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments."] decision" and that "race of victim influence was found at all stages of the criminal justice system process...." These results cannot be explained away by relevant non-racial factors, such as prior criminal record or type of crime. Furthermore, they lead to a very unsavory conclusion: In the trial courts of this nation, even at the present time, the killing of a white person is treated much more severely than the killing of a black person. Of the 313 persons executed between January 1977 and the end of 1995, 36 had been convicted of killing a black person while 249 (80%) had killed a white person. Of the 178 white defendants executed, only three had been convicted of murdering people of color. Our criminal justice system essentially reserves the death penalty for murderers (regardless of their race) who kill white victims. The rest of the ACLU’s case I disregard. The “unjust retribution” argument means nothing to me. In many ways life without parole is a greater punishment than death. Facing years and decades of walls and guilt is certainly more of an ordeal than a quick and (more or less) painless death. Good. Nor do I care about the relative costs of imprisonment vs. execution: some things society does because it is right, not because it costs more or less; besides the figures are disputed and depend how you compute them. Execution itself isn’t nearly as expensive as the constitutionally required lengthy appeals system. I don’t care much about the public popularity of death vs incarceration, either. The majority of people are wrong about many of things much of the time (that’s why we need republicanism, not pure democracy where a mob mentality can be more easily fostered) and public opinion has varied much over the last half century on the death penalty depending upon the prevailing political winds. And I surely don’t care how our system makes us look to our “civilized” friends abroad - they didn’t want us to attack Afghanistan either and they were dead wrong about that (sometimes war is the road to peace - that’s just the way it is). So while I am firmly opposed to the death penalty because I don’t want to be responsible - through the actions of my government - for the killing of any innocent Americans, and because I believe it raises the overall level of acceptable violence in our society... May All Your B-days Be Gummi, And All Your Christmases Be White It's Gummi Rebecca's birthday as well - a mega-B-day in that she's 30:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAWN OLSEN I love you, am very proud of you, and know how lucky I am to have you! xxxxoooo Eric Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Rosenberg Reviews Fellow blogger and Salon editor Scott Rosenberg reviews Motavalli's "Bamboozled at the Revolution" and Weinberger's "Small Pieces Loosely Joined.":
And that, really, was the problem. In the mid-'90s, as the New York media world woke up to the Net's rise, I always assumed that reports of media leaders' online virginity were highly exaggerated. I mean, how hard was it to install an AOL disk? But Motavalli's account leaves it quite clear that, yes, many of these guys who were getting their companies on the Net really hadn't ever used it themselves. "If you're not an online user, it's very difficult to understand the medium," says Warner exec Jim Moloshok. Well, duh. But somehow this elementary principle eluded media leaders for years. In one embarrassing anecdote culled from an Industry Standard article about the aftermath of the winter 2000 Time Warner/AOL merger, Time Warner CFO Richard Bressler hears about plans to promote Time magazines on AOL and asks, "What are these pop-ups? How big are they? Can you send me some information on them?" AOL's legendary deal-maker, David Colburn, responds, "Rich, why don't you invest $21.95 in an AOL subscription and consider it due diligence?" Ouch. ....Weinberger views the Web's perennial technical problems and "under construction" imperfections as a healthy antidote to sterile professionalism and a key to the Web's phenomenal fertility: "The designers weighed perfection against growth and creativity, and perfection lost. The Web is broken on purpose ... Remove the controls and we'll have to put up with a lot of broken links and awful information, but in return we'll get a vibrant new world, accessible to everyone and constantly in the throes of self-invention." Weinberger's Web is not just a giant marketplace or an "information resource" -- it's a social commons on which the interests of a mass of individuals are splayed in universally accessible detail and trumpeted in an effectively infinite array of personal voices. That concept is almost unfathomable to media pros whose business is "aggregating eyeballs" to sell to advertisers. Across the Jordan Bill Quick finds a fascinating behind the scenes look at Jordan's role in the impending attack on Iraq, which I promise to address at length tomorrow wKen:
Second, it needs to show that it has a credible military option even if the Saudis and Kuwaitis refuse to participate in a war on Iraq. If the U.S. military attacks strictly from the north, there is some possibility that Iraq might strike at Jordan. As a key ally and buffer between Iraq and Israel, the United States can't risk this. More important, the U.S. military will face the danger of SCUD missile launches from western Iraq as it did in 1991, and it needs Jordan as a base for suppressing the SCUDs. Since the feasibility of the Iraqi plan is coming under heavy scrutiny in the Pentagon and Congress, letting everyone know that Jordan is in is critical. Jordan has a number of reasons for supporting U.S. policy. The most important is that the government is deeply concerned by both the rising influence of radical Islam in its long-time antagonist Saudi Arabia and the radicalization of the Palestinians....
What's Funny? Humor IS different. Material written as humor, especially satire, should be judged differently from other forms of speech. Is it funny? Does it make its point well and economically? are the central issues; not, is it in good taste? or, is it mean? Most, if not all satire is mean to the objects of its derision. On Dawn's very first day as a blogger she wrote a satire on the "massacre" accusations thrown in the aftermath of the Israeli incursion into Jenin:
According to reports in the region, Palestinians have been seen digging up corpses and strategically placing them amongst the rubble. Eyewitness accounts have also backed this claim and added that once the corpses have been dumped, Palestinians have been calling U.N. officials over saying, "Look, look, more dead bodies." U.N. officials have been perplexed by the events and the advanced state of decomposition in which these bodies have been found. A member of the U.N. fact-finding team told this reporter:
Abdul Muhammad, a Palestinian working with U.N team stated, "We will work day and night, with no rest, no water, no food, until every body is dug up. Even my great grandmother's grave is not sacred. We are on a mission from Allah." But then last week Dawn wrote this:
Not since Ted Nugent was diagnosed with Mad Cow's Disease has the NRA been dealt such a PR blow. Representatives for the organization had no comment other than to say that "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Tune in for more on this breaking story..... As Maddie said, if the story would have appeared in the Onion, no one would have thought twice about it, because what this really comes down to is expectations, and people expect this sort of thing out of the Onion, but apparently they don't expect this sort of thing from Dawn. Jim Treacher addressed the topic too, but in his patented OBLIQUE manner, which no doubt deflected criticism. Besides, Jim doesn't have a comments section:
What's even more perplexing is the apparent view of many that labeling a tasteless comment 'a joke' has a talismanic power to immunize the speaker from all criticism. ....I'll agree with her that as a general proposition, society has lost much of its sense of humor. Political correctness has caused every grievance group to magnify imagined slights and perceived injustices beyond reason. It seems to me, though, that we're in danger of letting the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. In an apparent rebellion against perceived societal censorship, people are throwing away that part of their conscience that should be telling them that you don't laugh at some things and still call yourself a decent person. The other reason you wouldn't call someone at the Onion indecent is because you wouldn't confuse the writer's product - which is supposed to be funny and scandalous at the same time - with the writer, but that is exactly what was done to Dawn. She is just as much a writer as anyone at the Onion; her blog is every bit the literary forum that the Onion is, and she and every other blogger should be afforded the courtesy of not confusing their written output with the contents of their immortal soul. Attack the work, sure, but don't confuse the work with the writer. Rachel Lucas grasps that point rather well, and she is exactly in the demographic most likely to take offense at Dawn's humor. She left this comment on Dawn's site:
I am a member of the Silver Bullet Brigade (NRA), and I just blogged a nice, nice tribute to Charlie myself. But there is something called satire, and Dawn knows how to write it. She is also downright baby-like gentle compared to dicks like BartCop. She may actually think the NRA sucks, but she may not. I dunno, I haven't been reading her blog long enough. In any case, if I, the gun-totin', Heston-lovin' right-winger, can get a little giggle from what Dawn wrote, it just goes to show you that Dawn's funny even when she's mean. Just like me.
Humor is all a matter of context and under the right circumstances virtually ANYTHING can be funny, if only as a small break from disaster and tragedy: why do you think they call it "comic relief"? As I wrote on Spoons's site:
It's perfectly legit to say "I don't think this is funny" but treating it as a moral absolute is going a bit too far. Jokes ARE different and shouldn't be taken too literally or seriously. Of course if you crack a joke about my mother, then I'll get pissed - see what I mean? "Ever since acoustic became electric we've responded with a pool of money and a fair - but not perfect - way of splitting up the spoils" Pho's Jim Griffin on the state of the biz:
Ultimately, the Perfect Storm of forces converging on the business have executives who once feared government intervention pleading for it in Washington and Brussels and wherever they can pay someone to listen to their bleating cries for protection from their customers, who other industries will tell you in declaration and deed are Always Right. Yes, the economy is going to hell, that's true, and much of it is due to a gross imbalance between expectation and reality, a market that was largely fueled on digital media convergence but stopped in its tracks when content and capital went on strike, the jets cooled by law suits and log jamming that can only come from the highest-priced lawyers and lobbyists. Ultimately, though, the expectation created by advocates and purveyors of what is called Digital Rights Management software are squarely to blame. They sold a bill of goods to the industry, telling them they'd turn digital music and media and art into digitally controlled products with no marginal cost and infinite protection and data mining, with the result that big media waits and waits and waits for control that will never come. Michael Eisner hypocritically swears Disney won't release content unless it can be controlled at the same time he sends it down a cable wire into a flat-fee market of uncontrolled video cassette recorders, the same device Jack Valenti swore in court would kill the industry like the Boston Strangler. Technologists everywhere need to become hyper-honest with industry executives who ask: No, we will not in our lifetimes harness and tether art. No, it wouldn't be a good thing if we could. Art and anarchy go hand in hand, and conditioning access to granular pieces of knowledge and art on the ability of a parent to pay is a bad, immoral thing. Let's be clear: Digitization of music and media inherently liberates that content to find a shorter path to its audience, and whatever speed bumps we can shortsightedly build are quickly obviated by the new digital vehicles we build to move them. Control is not coming back, and there is no need to wait. The next vine is not a mechanism for control. Fortunately, the next vine can destroy the motive for piracy without mechanisms. Actuarial copyright is our past and our future. Digital networks ought no more ask permission to use songs than should restauranteurs and public address operators or radio or television broadcasters. The fees we can collect from network operators can and will grow the pie dramatically, and technology can help us divvy that pie in fair ways that reward and incent creation. But this future can only come from letting go. Talk of suing and prosecuting users and file traders is madness. Why require a digital network operator to control content and permissions when we offer Mel Karmizan a flat-fee to use whatever he wants, whenever he wants? Why should Clear Channel get essentially free reign over delivering content for a modest flat fee while we refuse to offer a proportionate fee to network users for the same freedom? At the same time, I think it equally irresponsible for those with licenses, such as some webcasters, to continually whine over fees for compulsories other businesses would covet. When the rate was halved and the whining only increased I wondered if anything other than free - with artists uncompensated - could possibly satisfy those who seek to build businesses with other people's art. This business of music and art will be rebuilt and grow handsomely on fair, flat actuarial fees that offer bundled price with unbundled choice. It's the way we've addressed every intersection of technology and media since electricity started spreading at the beginning of the last century. Ever since acoustic became electric we've responded with a pool of money and a fair - but not perfect - way of splitting up the spoils: Public address, radio, television, cable, satellite, and now webcasting all benefit from blanket compulsories that actuarially replace actual control. It's time we licensed digital networks at businesses and college campuses the same way we license restaurants, broadcasters and others for whom control is less efficient than actuarial fees. And it's time we stopped whining over having to pay when this happens. UPDATE Bob Bellin of MP3Player.com questions Griffin:
Jim - I loved your treatise but disagree with you here. Even with the rate halved, it amounted to several times annual revenue for many. As far as the artists are concerned, the total pie due them under the best circumstances, (assuming no rate change) will be a million or so, in aggregate, over the two year length of the CARP decision. I think that the talk about compensating artists has conceptual merit but no practical implication here, as the payments will likely be comparable to those checks for thirty cents we used to get for phone company credits. Wouldn't it make sense to allow for a token payment based on a revenue percentage for this CARP period and then reassess if anyone has any real traction? And what IS a reasonable rate when as you point out, for Clear Channel and Viacom it's zero and for the publishers it's a small percentage of revenue? MORE Rusty Hodge of SomaFM is even more pointed:
>such as some webcasters, to continually whine over fees for compulsories >other businesses would covet. When the rate was halved and the whining only >increased I wondered if anything other than free - with artists >uncompensated - could possibly satisfy those who seek to build businesses >with other people's art. Wow, you're quoting the RIAA! "to build businesses with other people's art." The only people who would covet those terms are the ones doing interactive services - these fees don't apply to interactive services. This is plain old fashioned radio delivered over the internet. What businesses are coveting those terms? And those fees don't appear to apply to subscription services. Webcasting, that is non-interactive music services delivered over the internet, is NOT in the business of making money off other people's art. We are in the business of helping consumers FIND MUSIC they otherwise would never hear. Our value added is finding the music we think our listeners would like, and exposing them to it. Webcasters provide FREE ADVERTISING to record companies, and the record companies don't even appreciate it. (Actually, that's not really true- many people in the record business DO appreciate it - the ones trying to get exposure for their records. Too bad the legal departments at the labels are working hard at keeping internet radio station FROM playing the music!) The only difference between net radio and over the air radio is that there is more choice of programming over the net. It also does a dis-service to the programmer who is creating these radio channels. Picking and mixing together the music is an art as well (although some large radio chains have made it more of a science than an art... a true DJ in the sense of the word is an artist). >Public address, radio, television, cable, satellite, and now >webcasting all benefit from blanket compulsories that actuarially >replace actual control. Except that the webcasting compulsories have too many complicated rules (songs per hour from box sets, same artists, etc. The tracking of this is complicated, and it interferes with the music programming). >It's time we licensed digital networks at businesses and college campuses >the same way we license restaurants, broadcasters and others for whom >control is less efficient than actuarial fees. And it's time we stopped >whining over having to pay when this happens. But, over the air radio broadcasters don't have to pay the fees Webcasters do. And I'm pretty sure that restaurants and nightclubs aren't paying these fees either. (Cell phone comparison - Imagine if a ring-tone supplier had to pay EACH TIME the phone rang? Would that be fair? No... but that's how net radio stations are forced to pay. Hell, we even have to pay if someone is connected but not in the same room with their computer!) UPDATE Griffin retorts:
Without regurgitating all the specifics, my thoughts are these: There should be an on-going panel, ala the Federal Reserve Board, that adjusts rates on a continual basis to effectuate the purpose of the Act and the Copyright laws and their foundation in the constitution, i.e., maximize public exposure to art with a balance to generate revenue to incent creation. In my opinion, this requires a balance between setting a known rate in advance that allows proper business planning and adusting that rate to reflect changes in market and other factors. Further, I think the rate should respect differences in digital-bit-rate used (for example, 8 karat gold is quite different from 18k gold) and similar changes in technology. The rates you mention are a product of a number of factors that have to do with not only the RIAA's request but equally those proposals advanced by webcasters participating in the negotiations and the hearing. I am sympathetic to the notion that rates shouldn't be "per song" and should instead reflect revenues or profits or some similar criteria, but this isn't what was put before the panel by either side or necessarily practical for other reasons. Do I think more webcasters should've participated and advanced proposals more consistent with what they now claim is their economic reality? Sure, but for various reasons they chose not to participate or could not participate based on other considerations. As a result, please don't interpret my remarks as support for the current rates, which I think may be too low for some well-heeled webcasters and too high for others. Ultimately, I think the key here is that the rates are not mandatory, but access to the content is, and there is plenty of room for negotiation with SoundExchange and its constituents and waivers ala Artemis' recent actions. If the effect of the rates is to produce sub-optimal revenues for SoundExchange, I have little doubt that this provides an incentive for different rates based on negotiation. The rates are mandatory for those who do not negotiate an alternative, but not set in stone for those who want to bargain with rights holders. It is tough to substitute for a market with public policy decisions. Indeed, under the applicable consent decrees judges review ASCAP and BMI rates. This was the first of what may be many hearings on what is appropriate, and these rates -- assuming they apply to a particular webcaster and they have not negotiated an alternative in advance or after the hearing -- expire at the end of the year. There is of course much public criticism of the RIAA in this process, and I can understand and appreciate much of it, but my experience doesn't validate the malevolent intent applied by many to their role. For example, I testified as the RIAA's expert witness (yes, I am prepared to hear more about how I sold my soul) but at no time in the process did they even once suggest how I should testify or ask me to say anything other than what I thought was the truth. I thought the RIAA's attorneys exceptionally good and fair. They simply asked me to tell the truth as I saw it and to explain the technology and economics behind webcasting. My testimony is, I believe, a matter of public record. Finally, to those who believe the only standard is parity with radio which pays nothing to sound recording owners, I must point out that the United States is a global exception in this regard and my guess is that this is attributable primarily to the warped role our media plays in our extended, non-parliamentary election process, with broadcasters wielding exceptional, disproportionate power. As a result, they get a break in the US like nowhere else, and I don't think it should be used to model a fair system for webcasting. At a Sunday LA Pho I once asked John Parres how much he thought webcasters should pay for the use of music. He offered an off-the-cuff opinion that it should be about 85% of their revenues, and while I won't hold him to the exaggerated number I know he was making an important point: Artists deserve money from those who build businesses on their art, and now that we have a law that says the artist should get half the money we shouldn't be cheap in setting the rate. Frisbee Dude Flicks His Last Flying Disc "Steady" Ed Headrick, inventor of the Frisbee, died at 78:
While no services are now planned, Headrick's ashes will be molded into a limited number of "memorial flying discs" which will be distributed to family and friends, and sold to help fund a future Frisbee/disc golf history and memorabilia museum, his son, Ken Headrick, said.
The Frisbee -- said to be named after the Frisbie Pie Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, whose round metal tins were used as toys by students at Yale University in the late 19th Century -- took on new life with the advent of industrial plastics. ....Awarded the patent for the first "professional" model Frisbee in 1966, Headrick went on to popularize a wide variety of Frisbee-related sports, founding the International Frisbee Association and later the Professional Disc Golf Association, which involves throwing a Frisbee at a metal cage. "We all wished for a miracle that would have had him up and out of bed throwing discs and joking around once again. That miracle that was Ed will have to live on in our hearts and souls now," the Disc Golf Association said in a release Tuesday. Headrick is survived by his wife as well several children and grandchildren. In an interview with the Santa Cruz Sentinel last year, Headrick acknowledged the special power of the Frisbee -- one of the simplest and most successful toys ever devised. "I felt the Frisbee had some kind of a spirit involved. It's not just like playing catch with a ball. It's the beautiful flight," Headrick said. "We used to say that Frisbee is really a religion -- 'Frisbyterians,' we'd call ourselves," he said. "When we die, we don't go to purgatory. We just land up on the roof and lay there." Orzel Critiques the Critics Chad Orzel has some very penetrating thoughts on the Sherman interview, and on Blogcritics in general. He should join us, shouldn't he? On Sherman:
40% would be an awful lot of "no answer" responses, so at least some of those are probably "about the same." If it's half "about the same" and half "no answer," well, then, we have what statisticians would call "a wash" -- 41% purchasing less, 39% purchasing about the same amount of music, if not more. If you put all those people into the "about the same" category, an arguably more accurate spin on these numbers would be that 59% of people surveyed bought at least as much music after file-sharing as before. Now, 41% is still much larger than 19%, so it's reasonable to believe that there's been a net reduction in sales, but that's not necessarily true. If those 41% halved their music buying, and the 19% doubled it, it would basically be a wash. If the 19% doubled their purchasing, and the 41% reduced their spending by a third, it'd be a net gain. Without knowing what they actually asked, and the relative sizes of the increases and decreases, it's impossible to say whether file-sharing is really decreasing sales. Sherman's initial citation of this study is the sort of dodgy use of statistics that should raise a red flag for anyone who can do math. The right thing to do here would be to use this study as a starting point, and use it to craft a sensible approach to file-sharing technology....
A humble suggestion, then, or at least as humble a suggestion as you're likely to get from anyone arrogant enough to run a web log: The process could maybe be sped up a bit by getting the various blogcritics to provide some sort of reference point from which to judge their tastes. Something like a Ten Favorite Albums list (at the risk of sliding into High Fidelity territory), with a few sentences (say, 75 words or less) saying what they like about each album. Then provide a link to that list from the blogcritics site, either at the end of the reviews, or off the front page, so that when, say, Brian Linse says an album reminds him of London Calling, we can get an idea of what, exactly, he means by that. Um, One Problem: It Sounds Like Shit Blogger Pontifex addresses MP3s and other Blogcritics topics:
Downloading is not significantly harming CD sales. If record companies don't coopt the P2P movement, they'll be out of business. I'm hoping those are two schools of thought, because the two principles sound pretty self-contradicting to me. But let's gaze into the looking glass and see what we can find. As of August 2000, according to the Department of Commerce publication "Falling Through The Gap": 41.5% of the U.S.'s 105 million households, or 43.6 million homes, had Internet access. Only 4.4% of all U.S. households had "broadband-speed access." Meanwhile, 63% of American households have a stereo shelf system. New technological trends tend to take a while to reach market saturation: "According to the International Recording Media Association, 90 percent of American homes currently have at least one VCR, as opposed to about 30 percent that have a DVD player. " (The article it comes from is dated June 27, 2002. Fresh off the press, boys!) So I think it's a little early to declare that "[t]he Compact Disc is dead, the age of Digital Music has arrived and the Record Companies are scared to death." The broadband connection your hardcore MP3 fanatic needs has not reached even moderate market saturation. And while your average computer audio setup is not sophisticated enough to fully capture the quality difference between lossy-compressed audio and the compact disc, the difference is noticable; the difference becomes even more pronounced when compared to... that's right, the stereo shelf systems that have greater market penetration than the Internet. The CD is digital music, and the overuse of capitalization is annoying. Yes, there is a growing trend towards online music downloading. And this trend is causing a lot of people to rethink the way music is distributed, in the same fashion as... as... Well, in the same fashion as everything else: "[T]he music industry had exactly the same response to the advent of reel-to-reel home tape recorders, cassettes, DATs, minidiscs, VHS, BETA, music videos ("Why buy the record when you can tape it?"), MTV, and a host of other technological advances designed to make the consumer's life easier and better." Do you notice a trend here? Do they make life better? Do they make life easier? Well, there was the trend towards portability that cassettes represented vice vinyl, but why did cassettes replace 8-track? The trend I'm seeing is... increased audio fidelity..... King, Smiley and Those Damned Schools Our Blogcritic friend and self-proclaimed "black conservative" Michael King has made the jump to the big time:
My own take differs - the schools are becoming more homogeneous, but not because of any reversal of Brown v. Board of Education; the schools are a reflection of the communities where they reside. As America becomes more balkanized, so do our schools. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- for the most part, we want our children to go to school where they are comfortable, and that is usually close to home. In any event, the program will be archived and available for you to listen to on the web after 12 noon, ET. All of this is very much up in the air right now. I am also a bit leery of Michael's statement about "comfort" being a determining factor: do we want our children as "comfortable" as possible, or do we want them to get the best possible education. Of course, all of this also ties in with the issue of homeschooling, very much on the collective tongue at the moment. Josh Clayborn tosses another log on the fire:
Daniel, I am reminding you to tell me why homeschooling is the "only viable option":
It is amusing and amazing and delightful how home schooled students—now somewhere in there [sic] college education—recognize each other, feeling the resonance of a superior education and an insatiable desire for knowledge. Blogcritics.com Been catching up with Blogcritics this morning - here are my thoughts: Wow! What a first day. Sometimes things just fall into place, and Blogcritics just fell with a cheerfully resounding thud. We had ove 7000 unique visitors in our first 24 hours - tremendous. Thanks for all of your links, attention, comments, opinions, suggestions. Thanks again to Cary Sherman, who stood in the line of fire and did a fine job of stating his industry's positions. We can agree or disagree with any/all individual points he made, but he did present them well. I have privately heard from a number of people who were anywhere from mildly surprised to astonished that Mr. Sherman was willing to stick his neck out in such a manner. The guy has balls and we admire balls around here. Keep coming back to the site because we will have more special interviews very soon! Remember, we are collecting questions and comments for a future interview, your 2 cents are greatly appreciated. Speaking of 2 cents, we also encourage you to give us your thoughts on the site in general or in particular - we are brand new and flexible, making changes as we go and flowing like a freaking river - kumbaya, baby. Our blogcritics rule with an iron fist. What an impressive initial batch of posts we have received - we thank you all. Observations for writers: we are streamlining the system. Soon you will receive codes that enable you to enter your own posts on this site, make changes and edit your own work. With this autonomy comes responsibility, though. I have received many questions about what form we want reviews in, and concerns about style and "fitting in." HERE'S THE RULE: we don't want you to fit in, we want you to be as eccentric, personal, free, weird, freakish, bizarre, etc., etc., as you would like. We want you to treat this LIKE A BLOG. As many have said, there are a million review sites, BFD, but there aren't any other review/commentary sites that feature the individuality and eccentricity of blogs. So go crazy, write whatever you want however you want, just find some way to tie it into an available CD or book. We will be adding DVDs and other pop culture products shortly. While we want you to be yourselves with a vengeance, we also need to meet a few standards: please be very careful with your spelling, make a resonable attempt at coherent sentence structure, and please note the Amazon info at the bottom of each post. When you start inputting your own posts, you wil need to add the Amazon code yourself. That's all we ask, the rest is up to you. We encourage all of you to use your material on your own sites and link to your work here - the more exposure, the more traffic, the better for us all. Your writing here will always be linked back to your site, let's make the links go both ways to our collective benefit. New writers: we have plenty of room for new writers. Simply send me an email with your name, blog name and general description of your site, a brief listing of your writing interests, and your first post. NO NEED TO SEND ME ANYTHING UNTIL YOU HAVE SOMETHING WRITTEN FOR THE SITE. Let's use Blogcritics as an opportunity to show off our best work and send people scurrying back to our own sites for more. Thanks again, I'm very excited. Tuesday, August 13, 2002
The Hawk At Dawn Hawkgirl Emily Jones interviewed Dawn - AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE!
Dawn: Oh. My. Gawd. Me: So, is that the Dawn Olsen way of saying "yes"? Dawn: Not too much, most of the hate I get is in the form of nasty comments of posts suggesting I am a lowlife Me: That's ridiculous. It's the self-righteous and smug that get me the most, the "morally superior to thou" type. Dawn: I made fun of gunnuts via Charleton Heston and you would have thought I raped someone's grandmother with a bagel toaster or something. I MEAN JEEBUS H. TAPDANCING CHRIST Dawn: Alzheimers isn't funny perse, but what the F? Right Wing freaks need to calm the F down. Dawn: you know? Dawn: or is it me? Me: No, I agree. I'm pretty conservative, but I think that a lot of the wingers need to chill out and take it down a notch. I think there's a bit of hypocrisy to their outrage sometimes. But the same goes for the extreme left. Now there's a group that could use a sense of humor. More Teeth Dan Gillmor has some dental problems:
About 15 years ago a dentist put in a bridge, using a conservative method that left intact an undamaged tooth. But that method turned out to be too weak structurally to last a lifetime. So I'm off to the dentist today for a major upgrade of the architecture. I wonder if there's a metaphor, or an axiom, in this situation -- like, maybe, do it the strongest way the first time... I spent many an hour in the dentist's chair after that. He had to remove the stumps and fit me for a plate; until my permanent teeth grew in I wore two false teeth. When I felt really feisty, I would run up to a girl, get up in her face, flick the plate out of my mouth and catch it in my hand to an invariable scream, or at least a yelp. I found the plate in a box a few years ago, couldn't believe how small it was, like the fragment of a child's jaw with teeth still in it that we found in an indian burial ground unearthed when they were building the Abalone Cove Shore Club in PV over 35 years ago. Both are way out of context and literally out of time now, no longer usable by whom they were made for. Free Like Air Glenn got to go to a show I would have hurt someone to attend:
It was a great show. And I don't feel at all guilty about the free tickets. Backstage CAN be a lot of fun too, although in general it's overrated: mostly a bunch of smelly roadies running around tripping over cable and feeling up teenagers. But I had a great time backstage with the Clash at the US Festival back in the early-80s, a ball at the first Lollapalooza in the early-90s with Trent Reznor, Living Colour, Butthole Surfers (when they weren't puking), Jane's Addiction and the general circus feel. I also had WAY too good a time when I booked Marshall Tucker to play at Wittenberg in the late-70s. After the show they invited me to join them and a bunch of skanky townie girls on the bus. I don't remember much, but I do remember singing drunken harmony with Doug Gray on a very ragged "Heard It In a Love Song," and getting home very stinky at about 7am. I've never seen Creedence or John Fogerty, though - that would be a treat. The Language of Love Maddie on the persuasive powers of a French accent:
Giselle walks over to the noisy bunch Sunday night and I'm paraphrasing here as it was actually much more graphic, {read with a french accent, please} "shut the fuck up, you immature idiots" "you and your rich asshole friends have disturbed most of the neighborhood with their fucking rap music, get some taste and grow up you pieces of shit." {/read with french accent} To which the 22 year who shits cash said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea that we were being too loud." And immediately the music was turned off and the crowd silently filed back inside the townhouse. Not a peep has been heard out of them since. Chow We have a menu for the August 24 Blogger Fiesta/Bash, as posted by the charming and radiant Sulizano:
Black bean chili -- vegetarian or even vegan if you don't pile on the sour cream and pepper jack but I personally do not wish to live a life sans cheese. Whatever meat/chicken/brats/burgers the guys feel like burning on the grill. Honest to god cornbread. Not that Yankee crap, the REAL stuff. Some kind of salad or something. Pecan pie. Baseball cake -- long story, but it's so good it's worth the wait. Plugged watermelon. Knock-you-nekked margaritas. And for breakfast Sunday morning, Baked French Toast with the fruit du jour, and the requisite pitcher of bloody mary's. Jeff's Teeth Have I mentioned lately how much it warms my heart when Jeff Goldstein rhetorically sinks his teeth into stiff-boweled, thought-policing rigid-o-crats who would cover the color red for being too bold? Well it does:
Man. Do I ever hate guys like this -- petty tyrants who've managed to convince people that a few isolated school tragedies are a worrisome epidemic, and so marshall law must be declared -- with themselves assuming the role of Marshall Law. For the sake of the children™, of course. The result: Zero-tolerance policies and Hate-free zones. Gggghuh. Next order of business? Ritalin dispensers in the hallways (right next to the condom dispensers, natch....) More Schooling The subject of homeschooling has been much amended and masticated since my original post yesterday. Please go back here for updates relating to input from Bobby Allison-Gallimore, Josh Clayborn, and Ben Domenech. Both Bobby and Ben were homeschooled themselves. Dawn has a passel of interesting comments on her original post, and the comment section here has some great input too. Just added: Phillip Winn has been around the education block a time or two:
....Oh yes, the family business. I mentioned it, didn't I? It's an Independent Study Program, which basically means that it is a home school. In California, every child must belong to a school. Over 1000 belong to the one my family runs. I helped start it, but then moved away, so I'm only peripherally inolved any more. With that many home schooled children, you can be sure I've seen it all. We've seen overachievers and underachievers, introverts and extroverts, religious bigots and party animals, but most people fall well between the extremes. It's a religious school which requires church attendance, and there are relatively high standards which the parents are expected to meet. Yes, we've kicked out people that haven't met them, more often than I'd like, but not as often as you might hear. Most people really do want to do the best for their children, and most people who are willing to make the financial investment in their children that joining the school requires are pretty clear-headed about what that means. Among other things, it does mean socialization. ....Home education isn't all bad. Like anything else, it can be abused, but when push comes to shove, I believe it's the best option out there for committed parents. Dawn, if your sister wants to homeschool, tell her this: It's not the easiest option. It would be easier to send the kids to someone else to take care of. But if you're willing to spend the money (not a ton, but some) and work at it, it is by far the most rewarding educational experience available. She should join HSLDA, join an ISP or support group, and dig in. Feel free to email me questions, too. I don't want you to only see the dark underbelly of homeschooling. The Other Side of the Coin I now find myself on the very useful Pho mailing list, joining the cognoscente in the discussion of issues related to the digital delivery of art, especially music, movies and books. Yowza. I just received a reaction to our interview with RIAA president Cary Sherman from Pho-member Fred W:
the room (my wife having learned not to put breakable crockery in my reach while I am reading stuff from the RIAA). The question and answer follow: Q.: You say that you are protecting artists rights, but after what AFTRA did to Sam Moore, shouldn't you be helping artists suffering from the indignities of piss-poor managments of their pension funds and royalties? A.: The Sam Moore dispute with AFTRA is bad news, no question about it. But it's ancient history. Today, artists are the most well-represented people on earth. They have managers and lawyers that specialize in extracting money from record companies for their clients, and they're very good at it. We just got the results of a study of contracts, and the amount of money being paid to these artists is impressive. New contracts in 2000 averaged $450,000 in advances and commitments for the first album; if the artist was successful and renegotiated his contract, the average soared to $3.7 million. You can imagine the sums being paid to the superstars. By the way, the companies have been helping out the older artists with major contributions to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and other groups. ----- There is just so much wrong with this answer. It is the conduct of the companies after the contract is signed that is the core of Sam's complaints against the industry, but Sherman doesn't go there. First of all, it isn't responsive to the question, but I am getting used to that. "But it's ancient history." - For those of you attempting to divine a unified RIAA theory of time, ancient history includes 2000, as documents from the labels for which Sam Moore recorded indicate they still aren't paying royalties and still not reporting income to the AFTRA Fund on his behalf. This is why the RICO charges against the industry are still alive in the Atlanta case. "Today, artists are the most well-represented people on earth." - A little hyperbolic perhaps, and probably ignores that segment of the population made up by Martha Stewart, and Enron and Worldcom executives, not to mention the record industry itself. "They have managers and lawyers that specialize in extracting money from record companies for their clients, and they're very good at it." - And, Sherman should have continued, they are SOOOOOO good that we use a lot of the same people ourselves! We even recommend some of them to the artists because they are so good! What conflicts? "We just got the results of a study of contracts," - Which the RIAA paid for, and for which the RIAA provided the professor the contracts to 'study.' I am sure they were so surprised and excited by the results that they are thinking of asking the same guy to do another independent study of how happy artists are getting screwed over on royalties. I can tell you now you will be astonished at those results! "and the amount of money being paid to these artists is impressive." - Unless, of course, you are a record company executive, and then it is chump change, and, unless you realize that the artist isn't really being paid, but just advanced the 'impressive' sums. "New contracts in 2000" - also known on the RIAA timeline as the "Post-Sam Moore Era" (see above). "averaged $450,000 in advances and commitments for the first album," - which they expect to see completely repaid from the first album, (album? What's an album?), or there won't be a second one, "if the artist was successful and renegotiated his contract, the average soared to $3.7 million." - but, by the RIAA's own admission (if you can believe any number they give you), 90% of the artists never reach that level. "You can imagine the sums being paid to the superstars." - Mariah Who? Michael Who? As bad as the terms of the standard initial contract are (and they are pretty grim), the new artist lacks the leverage to get a markedly better deal (even with that hotshot representation) from any of the companies, and that study, strangely enough, stopped looking at the situation the day the contract is signed. The problem is conduct, not construction, but Mr. Sherman is telling us to "ignore the man behind the curtain". "By the way, the companies have been helping out the older artists with major contributions to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and other groups." - Which means "We don't have to play fair with artist royalties because we donate to charities that pay out alms after they move into our catalog and we can screw them over virtually at will because they don't make enough individually to pay for an audit. Those artists will eventually die and stop being a nuisance, but the masters will make us money forever. We're swell guys, really." Bah! In the Air How's this for timing? Forrester Research denies that file-swapping is to blame for the recording industry's slump of the last two years:
Based on surveys of 1,000 U.S. online consumers, Forrester said it sees no evidence of decreased CD buying among frequent digital music consumers and said the record labels could restore industry growth by making it easier for people to find, copy, and pay for music on their own terms. Forrester predicts that by 2007, digital music revenues in the United States will reach more than $2 billion, or 17 percent of the music business, from about $3 million in 2001. Forrester pointed to the economy and competition from other media for the music market's downturn, rather than the emergence of free song-swap services like now-idled Napster and several similar sites in its wake, which the recording industry has claimed in several copyright lawsuits have hurt sales.
Downloading will start to soar in 2005 as finding content becomes effortless and impulse purchases easy. Labels will make content available on equal terms to all distributors, while online retailers will become hubs for downloading, Forrester said. The Next Step Fine you? Peanuts. Electronic disruptions? Child's play. We will throw your ass in jail for file-swapping:
....The new strategy relies on a two-pronged approach. Part one, as previously reported by CNET News.com, appears to widen legal efforts to include civil lawsuits against individuals. Trading copyrighted wares without permission generally runs afoul of current federal law, which means that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), if it chooses could pursue the matter in court. That has some benefits: If the RIAA wins a judgment, it can take a cut of the defendant's future paychecks and inheritances, and the debt does not disappear even if that person files for bankruptcy. ....Enter part two of the new strategy, which seeks to enlist the resources of the federal government in an attempt to put peer-to-peer pirates in federal prison. Last Friday, Reuters reported that some of the most senior members of Congress are pressuring the Justice Department to invoke a little-known law: the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act. Under the NET Act, signed by President Clinton in 1997, it is a federal crime for a person to share copies of copyrighted products such as software, movies or music with friends and family members if the value of the work exceeds $1,000. Violations are punishable by one year in prison, or if the value tops $2,500, not more than five years in prison. That's a mighty weapon to wield against peer-to-peer pirates, especially when so many Americans are potential federal felons, but it seems likely that the Justice Department will honor Congress' request. The agency already has used the NET Act to imprison software pirates, a move that tech companies hailed as "an important component of the overall effort to prevent software theft."
"It's positive in the sense that this decision is going to make everyone aware of what the real stakes in this contest are," Jaszi said. On the other hand, he said, "I think (the industry) is going to have a tremendously difficult time trying to find judges and juries who will convict individuals who are engaging in content sharing of this type." Any NET Act prosecution could send a chill through the entire peer-to-peer community inside the United States, with possible prison time for what most people seem to view as a harmless activity--illegal, perhaps, but easy to forgive--like speeding on an interstate highway. Jaszi says any future trial "may become a trial of the whole question of whether we regard content sharing" as a criminal act. Rob Pegoraro On PressPlay and Rhapsody The dialogue continues:
Given the industry's habit of obstinate resistance to technological change, that counts as a revolutionary development. PressPlay's new $9.95-a-month plan allows unlimited downloading and streaming in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio, but you can't move those downloads off the computer, nor can you play them if you close your account. A $17.95 plan ($14.95 a month over a one-year term) adds 10 "portable downloads" a month, which you can move, burn to a CD or transfer to some digital-music players. You can also buy portable downloads {grv}a la carte -- five for $5.95, 10 for $9.95 or 20 for $18.95. PressPlay's selection, however, remains weak: It only stocks music from its two corporate parents, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, plus a set of independent labels. ....A different music service I tried last week, Listen.com's Rhapsody, gets closer to the mark, even though it offers no downloading outside of its classical-music plan. Instead, a $9.95 monthly subscription buys unlimited streaming from an inventory that includes material from all five major record labels, plus many more indie labels than PressPlay. Listen.com is also upfront about explaining when an artist isn't available. What makes Rhapsody's streaming-only approach work is the way its Windows Media streams start almost immediately and sound as good as downloaded files. (The site uses a high-quality 128-kbps encoding, while PressPlay tops out at 96 kbps.) I heard maybe one dropout per hour at work and over DSL at home -- to me, that made Rhapsody's streams the functional equivalent of PressPlay's downloads. (Over a modem, however, Rhapsody sounds just as crummy as PressPlay.) You can use a Rhapsody account from as many Windows PCs as you like. Like PressPlay, Listen.com suggests a Mac version is likely but isn't promising anything. A Rhapsody subscription also includes access to a set of online radio stations -- including custom channels built around up to 10 artists of your choice -- with one supremely valuable feature: a skip button to avoid unwanted songs.... Singing and Blogging Madeleine Begun Kane, aka MadKane is at it again with her amusing song parodies - this one about bloggers:
Bloggers zing, are you list'nin'? Some are vain, some are bristlin'. The left and the right Are happy tonight. Surfin' in a weblog wonderland. "Bombs away," say the blog hawks. "War's insane," other blogs balk. Some sing Bush love songs. Some shout that he's wrong. Surfin' in a weblog wonderland..... What Was Going On In November? ANOTHER blogger birthday today: our good pal Alex Whitlock, who rocks it RAW. He has some pithy commentary on adoptions, abortion and 9/11 anthems today - always worth a read and a great guy too. Happy B-day Alex! Lovely Assistant Poster Girl Kelly sends her special regards as well. Launched Okay then - back to our regular programming. Special thanks to Cary Sherman for giving us two hours of his time for this experiment, which I think went very well. At least the dialogue has begun. Thanks to Mr. Sherman, Allan Mayer - who served as liaison, and Matt Welch for dreaming up the interview idea in the first place. Blogcritics.com will be updating throughout the day with new reviews and commentary - check in often. Interview Now On At Blogcritics.com - Come On By! Please check out Blogcritics.com - lots a-happening - but we will mirror the interview with Cary Sherman here: Good morning all! Welcome to our live interview with RIAA pres Cary Sherman. I will be asking questions sent along by our contributors and readers. We will begin shortly. Thanks for stopping by, Eric Olsen. Question #1: Why are you lobbying so hard for copy-restriction technologies when a) they are readily defeated by anyone with a CD player and an audio cable and time on their hands b) they annoy legitimate customers trying to transfer music from CD to MP3 players c) they crash computers, leading to class action suits against your memeber for distributing malicious code? These do not add to the value of your recordings, they reduce it. Instead, why not adopt Enhanced CDs that have images and lyrics on for computer users, as is done widely in the UK? Kevin Marks Cary Sherman: Actually, we're not lobbying for copy-restriction technologies. We do want our companies to be able to use copy protection technology on their CDs, however, so that they can discourage unlimited copying and distribution on the Internet. Each company decides on its own whether to use such technology, and so far, only one major has done so for commercial releases in the U.S., and then only on four albums. (ALL releases with copy protection on them have been labeled, by the way. Don't believe rumors that companies are secretly putting copy-protected CDs into the market.) Significantly, the US companies have been conscious of the fact that lots of consumers listen to music on their computers, so they've been using additional technology to give consumers the ability to play the CDs on computers (in what are called "second sessions"). Technologies are also coming along that will allow consumers to transfer music files to portable devices, etc. ? but still protect against unlimited copying and distribution on the Internet. The idea is to come up with consumer-friendly technology that allows users to make appropriate personal use of their music, but that prevents piracy. As for crashing computers, I know that there have been reports of that out of Europe. That's one of the reasons the US labels are proceeding so cautiously ? because they don't want the consumer to have a bad experience. The technology in this area keeps changing, and improving. You mention Enhanced CDs. As it happens, lots of consumers have had trouble with Enhanced CDs, because they may not play on all devices. So every time you mess with computer technology, there are unexpected effects. But I certainly agree that giving the customer more value ? like images and lyrics ? is a great way to encourage people to buy CDs rather than download the music without paying for it. Question #2: Let's get down to brass tacks – 1:why is there truly a need for the RIAA any more, given the existance of technology that permits and encourages the bypassing of the "middleman" organizations in the first place? The impression most have been given is that the RIAA is out to squash the technology from P2P sharing to Internet Radio, simply because they have not been able to find a valid methodology of extracting "Caesar's" cut ("render unto Caesar what is Caesar's") from each unit sold (i.e., download that takes place). Is this the case, and if so/not, why/why not? 2:If the recently introduced bill permitting the scanning of individuals' computers ever sees the light of day, then how would you discern whether or not someone honestly owns (or has honestly purchased) a piece of music on their computer, as opposed to something that supposedly has not? Isn't this piece of legislation nothing more than a legal means to rifle through individuals' computers in order to glean yet more money from them in the form of users' fees or "fines?" 3:Are the RIAA (and by extension the MPAA) out to remove music (and video) from the net entirely, unless it is tightly and rigidly controlled? Michael King Cary Sherman: 1. Record companies have been major beneficiaries of new technology (from wax cylinders to vinyl to LPs to CDs), and the current technological developments are no exception. But let's face it, even great technology can be abused. And that's what we're confronting right now. Our companies have to figure out how to take advantage of the great new delivery systems that the Internet offers, without being seriously damaged by uncontrolled piracy. P2P in particular can really be a fabulous technology ? but right now it's doing far more harm than good. (So our surveys show.) Also contrary to your impression, record companies want Internet radio to succeed. We need lots of outlets for music, and webcasting is one of the most exciting new ways for new artists and new music to gain exposure. Record companies (and artists ? who get 50% of the royalties) also want to be paid fair value for their music when it's used for commercial purposes by webcasters. Just because we have a disagreement over what fair value is for the music doesn't mean we want to "squash" Internet radio. Right now, we're in negotiations with small webcasters to figure out what kind of rate works for all sides. As for the need for RIAA (and presumably record companies), there will always be a need for record companies ? because they are the venture capital companies of the music business. They invest their money, and their time and energy, into developing artists and bringing them to the attention of the public. Record companies may change in the years ahead, but their core function will always be an important part of the music business. 2. I think you've been misled about what the Berman bill would do. It would allow copyright owners to use technical measures to prevent illegal distribution of copyrighted works on P2P systems. It would not allow, and we would never seek the right, to go into people's computers and "scan" their files. No viruses; no deleting MP3 files; no hacking; just technical measures to prevent distribution of a file after it leaves someone's computer. Thus, we would have no reason to ever try to discern whether or not someone honestly owns a piece of music on their computer. 3. NO! I understand that people read more about litigations than about the day-to-day efforts of record companies to launch (and license) legitimate online businesses, but the fact is that the record companies have been working very hard at getting music on the Internet legally. That happens to be difficult ? because you need the permission of the songwriters and music publishers, and in many cases the artists as well, and those clearances aren't easy to get. (Everyone is nervous about piracy, and trying to figure out how much revenue they should earn, and what the business model is going to be, etc.) And then there are the technical infrastructures that have to be built to account for downloads and streams and pay royalties to rightsowners; the security for the content; and so on. It's a lot easier to do it illegally (just post it, don't worry about security, and don't pay anybody anything); doing it legally takes time. But the companies are getting there. There are a lot of subscription services that are up and running with lots of content; more companies are allowing more downloading, and burning; there's a lot of experimentation on pricing. In other words, a real market is emerging! Question #3: Why does the entertainment industry in general, and the recording industry in particular, look at technology- MP3 and internet radio being the two examples that come most readily to mind- as a threat to its profits that must be agressively neutralized? Instead of exerting energy against technology in an effort to maintain the status quo, why not work with technology, put your own creative resources behind it, and help figure out a way to make change a positive thing for everyone? Andrew Duncalfe Cary Sherman: Please see my response to the last question ? I think I answered essentially the same question. What's important to understand is that the record companies are not trying to "neutralize" MP3s or Internet radio? they're simply trying to ensure that they operate in a manner that's consistent with a legitimate marketplace. If P2P systems are displacing sales, then who is going to invest in an online delivery system that actually pays royalties to artists, songwriters, producers, publishers and labels? The companies are anxious to work with technology and put their own creative resources behind it to make a positive change for everyone ? that's why they've been working on deals for new delivery systems like subscription services, download services, locker services, etc. But if third parties like KaZaA can come into the same marketplace and offer the same music without permission, without licenses, without paying anybody anything (other than themselves), the Internet will become nothing more than a haven for piracy, with no legitimate alternatives. That's what the litigations are all about ? establishing that the same copyright law that applies in the physical world applies on the Internet too. Once those ground rules are established, businesses can flourish ? and everyone benefits. Question #3a: 3 specific questions in the spirit of Andrew Duncalfe's question. 1) Why not embrace the technology for greater profits? I have blank CDs and a CD burner. You, the record company, have content. Sell me the content and let's skip the plastic box, the pre-printed CD, and the little flaps of paper with writing too small to read. I will burn my own CD or MD, or place the content on my file server for safekeeping. If you make the price reasonable, I'll buy all my music this way and you can eliminate ALL of the middle men. The majority of people are honest and would pay a reasonable amount for the convenience and quality you could offer. 2) Do you believe that last sentence? and 3) Why wouldn't this work? Mark Mavroudis Cary Sherman: Of course record companies want to embrace the technology for greater profits. That's what they've done before, and that's what they want to do again. How to do it isn't so clear or easy, however. All of the majors are already offering sales via downloads. So you can skip the plastic box and all that (although lots of music fans want that stuff). Some of the majors have recently announced price reductions (99 cents a track, $1.49 a track, etc.). Some are beginning to allow burning as well. And all of them want to allow transfers to other devices (like portable music players, car stereos, etc.). (All the companies recognize that portability is key; that people will not accept music that can only be listened to on a computer; and the technology companies keep promising that portability with security is "almost ready," but software isn't the only vaporware.) So the market for downloads is developing, and it will probably start to move more quickly now that a lot of the clearance problems have been solved. Yes, I do believe that most people are honest and would pay a reasonable amount for convenience and quality. What I also believe is that it doesn't take much for people to justify not paying. If it's a major artist, they say "they're already rich enough." If it's an unknown artist, they say "I'm doing her a favor by promoting her work." But in the end, convenience will count for a lot; and security will count for even more (only now are the security flaws in P2P systems becoming known, not to mention the privacy risks). So I'm optimistic about the prospects for legitimate businesses online. Question #4: Several questions: 1:Studies have shown that there has not been a general decline in CD sales since the advent of P2P filesharing, in fact it's been sort of a wash hasn't it? I know that had I not downloaded some of the Nine Days tracks from "Maddening Crowd", I never would have bought the CD. So why are you trying so hard to fight this? 2:How are you actually going to overcome the "fair use" doctrine? It's already a fact that "archival" copies are allowed, so why is "space shifting" not archival and thus "fair use"? 3:You say that you are protecting artists rights, but after what AFTRA did to Sam Moore, shouldn't you be helping artists suffering from the indignities of piss-poor managments of their pension funds and royalties? Interested to hear your answers.... Shawn Cary Sherman: 1. I wish you were right that CD sales haven't been impacted by filesharing. (I hate that term, by the way. To me, "sharing" means we each get a little less. If I share my pie, I only get to eat half. If I share my car, I can't use it when the other person has it. "Filesharing" however means we each get the whole thing, and noboby gives up anything! That's not sharing, it's publishing!) In 2001, sales were off by 10% in the US. That's a huge drop. Sales are down more than 10% so far this year (according to SoundScan). What's more, this is happening around the world, not just in the U.S. It's hard to think that people suddenly don't like the new music being offered in countries as diverse as the US, Japan, Germany, Sweden, the UK, etc. But what all these countries have in common is growing Internet access and increasing numbers of CD burners and burgeoning sales of blank CD-R discs. Get the idea? Furthermore, we've been studying this for awhile (no surprise there). In a study we'll be releasing soon conducted by Peter Hart Research Associates for us, we learned that -- by more than two to one ? those who say they are downloading more say they are purchasing less. To be fair, some said they were purchasing more. But only 19% said they purchased more, while 41% said they purchased less. We've got lots more data that's consistent with these findings. The studies being bandied about to show that filesharing helps music sales don't really show that ? they just show that there's a correlation between people who download music and people who buy CDs. Well that's no surprise. Music fans are going to buy CDs as well as download music for free. But if there's any promotional benefit from filesharing, it's more than outweighed by the damage it's doing to sales. In 2000, the top ten albums sold 60 million units in the U.S. In 2001, they sold 40 million units. Seven albums sold over 5 million copies in 2000; none did in 2001. People are copying the biggest hits, and those are the money-makers that record companies rely on to pay for investments in new artists and music. (I'm glad you bought the Maddening Crowd CD, by the way.) 2. This question brings out the lawyer in me. It is not a fact that "archival" copies are allowed. Copyright law specifically allows certain kinds of archival copies of software, but not of music, movies, books or anything else. In fact, in the Texaco case, the court held that making archival copies of scientific papers was not a fair use. As for space shifting, I don't think any court has actually held that it's a fair use. And a couple have specifically ruled that it isn't. That doesn't mean that copyright owners are likely to come after you if you make a copy for your car. But the space-shifting argument tends to be abused ? it was used by Napster to justify their P2P system, for example. And the court rejected it. 3. The Sam Moore dispute with AFTRA is bad news, no question about it. But it's ancient history. Today, artists are the most well-represented people on earth. They have managers and lawyers that specialize in extracting money from record companies for their clients, and they're very good at it. We just got the results of a study of contracts, and the amount of money being paid to these artists is impressive. New contracts in 2000 averaged $450,000 in advances and commitments for the first album; if the artist was successful and renegotiated his contract, the average soared to $3.7 million. You can imagine the sums being paid to the superstars. By the way, the companies have been helping out the older artists? with major contributions to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and other groups. Question #5: I can walk into any bookstore and peruse a book for hours before buying. I can also return that book for store credit without the bookstore accusing me of photocopying the book at home. I generally cannot peruse the contents of a CD, and I can not return it once it has been opened. Thus, I'm treated as a criminal, and forced to buy a $16.99 raffle ticket. Why are you hiding the contents of a CD from the consumer? Are you afraid that generally once they hear the full album (rather than just the radio hit that has been drilled into their heads) that the consumer will not buy it? Please elaborate on why, as a consumer, I am not entitled to know what I am buying. Thanks Jon Cary Sherman: I guess you haven't been to a record store lately. A lot of them feature this really cool "wand" that you can swipe across the barcode of any CD in the bins ? and you will immediately hear samples from the various tracks on that CD! It's really great. Most record stores also feature "listening posts" where you can sample the music from CDs, but those are limited to the specific CDs being offered that month. The Internet presents an unbelievable opportunity for sampling. Go to online music stores (like Tower, or Amazon, or loads of others) and click on the album you're interested in and you'll be able to hear samples all day long. In short, everyone is better off when you, the consumer, get to know what you're buying before you buy it. You're a happier music fan, and we don't have an unhappy customer who feels ripped off. Mad Craziness!! Blogcritics.com is up! We are more or less on schedule for the 11AM chat with Cary Sherman - last minute maneuvering and logistical machinations now in effect. Still figuring out how to do things for myself. We all should bow in the direction of Glenn Mac Frazier every day from now on due to his extraordinary efforts to get this thing up and running. Movable Type still looks like Greek to me. Only a portion of the reviews are up. Due to the tremendous number of very fine pieces turned in, it is taking us a long time to get them all in. Thanks for your patience! In the near future, contributors will be able to post and edit their own reviews, making life a big fat bowel of cherries for us all! More very soon - thanks for all of your help and interest. Monday, August 12, 2002
Bobby and Bud Bobby Allison-Gallimore:
....were in charge of San Fransisco State University, he would recommend that the University follow up on the attacks on its Israeli population by instituting an Islamic studies program. Wait a minute... ...were in charge of the baseball players union, he'd set a strike date today. Hmmmm... In light of these real-life PR blunders, perhaps it's time to begin the caffeinspiration "Bud Selig Awards for Astounding Ineptness in Public Relations".... Home+School=Problems Dawn has a well-written and thoughtful post on homeschooling that I basically agree with:
UPDATE Homeschooled Bobby Allison-Gallimore (man, that's a lot of syllables) says Dawn and I are full of shit up to our eyeballs - well, he disagrees anyway:
Full disclosure: Lest I be accused of ulterior motives, here are my tie-ins to homeschooling. I was homeschooled for 11 years, until I took classes at the local community college my senior year in high school, then went on to Kansas State University. At KSU, I was a member of a fraternity, possibly one of the most purely social institutions in the world. I also was involved in a lot of other social activities that you can read about here. My brother, two years younger than I, has had a similar experience. My parents (my Dad went to the University of Virginia and my Mom has a master's degree in American Culture) are now homeschooling my younger sister, who appears to already be even more social than my brother or I. exception, but I still think it's the other way around. UPDATE Josh Clayborn takes a middle path:
AND YET ANOTHER Ben Domenech was homeschooled and he is offended:
Summer Veshka is warm:
I'm seriously considering grabbing a lawn chair, finding a river, and sitting in the middle of it with a big hat on my head. Maybe bring a book. And some beer. Sounds like a plan to me. ANOTHER Leo Happy Birthday to my Cleveland mate Chas Rich of the schweet Sardonic Views - dude had a baby recently as well (okay his wife HAD the baby) - congrats! We expect to see him at the Blogger Fiesta August 24, and you too if you are cool. Chas:
Typical Summer Post This could have appeared on any one of about about 100 blogs in the last couple of months:
This means I can surf porn and blog all night like all you other pervs out there. You know who you are. Dead and Drawing You want to be a successful artist? Die:
Take Tupac Shakur. The infamous rapper was gunned down in Las Vegas six years ago at age 25, but last year he sold 2.7 million albums and earned an estimated $7 million. In fact, Shakur--who had recorded some 200 unreleased tracks at the time of his murder--has put out more albums dead than alive. ....To compile our definitive list, four reporters looked at dozens of estates and spent countless hours interviewing surviving family members, lawyers and estate administrators. Drawing on Forbes' 18 years of wealth-estimating experience, our reporters calculated pretax earnings to the estate from licensing agreements, and book and record sales, for the 12-month period from June 2001 to June 2002. In cases where the income to the estate was spilt among several entities--as with Lucille Ball, who splits her earnings from I Love Lucy with Desi Arnaz and CBS--we considered only that which the actual ranked celebrity would have earned.
1 Elvis Presley $37 2 Charles Schulz 28 3 John Lennon 20 4 Dale Earnhardt 20 5 Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel 19 6 George Harrison 17 7 J.R.R. Tolkien 12 8 Bob Marley 10 9 Jimi Hendrix 8 10 Tupac Shakur 7 11 Marilyn Monroe 7 12 Jerry Garcia 5 13 Robert Ludlum 5 The Divide We have been discussing the cultural gulf between "techbloggers" and "warbloggers." Glenn came up with a fascinating analogy from mythology and literature comparing the war attitudes of Ares and Athena:
....It would be a bummer if crazed ideologues who want to bring back the 12th century wound up winning that war, just because those who should be forging the latest version of Athena's shield think that any effort to defend oneself smacks of Ares.
And that's something I'm noticing an awful lot about the warbloggers I've found. They seem (in my travels) to be young, childless, and civilian. If they have children, they seem to be very young, younger than 13 so far. To me, not to put too fine a point on it, this positively reeks of armchair quarterbacking. It's easy to place wagers when you have nothing to lose. Virtually NO single military action would seem to justify the loss of MY child, but liberty and the ideals of this nation are certainly worth fighting for, and this work is done collectively over time, by looking at the big picture. The question isn't, "Is this action worth the life of my child?" The question is, "Does this action improve the world and/or America's place in it?" If so, it is worth it over the long haul. Every life is precious, but so is the health of the nation. We have a professional military, manned (and wo-manned) by highly-trained professionals whose job is the defense of the country. Though we love them as individuals and pray for their health and safety, we must view them collectively for the purposes of policy. Simply BEING in the military is an act of patriotism and sacrifice that can lead to terrrible personal loss at any moment: the servicepeople lost in peacetime accidents are no less defenders of freedom than those lost capturing an enemy redoubt with their bare hands in the heat of battle. Then Scott describes the ugliness of war, as if that makes it any less necessary at times:
Death for a soldier is never a pretty thing. It's actually kind of unusual for someone to just be blown to bits, or have the top of their head taken off. Far more frequent are the "mortal injuries", things that do eventually kill you but take their own sweet time about it. An arm gets blown off, a belly gets ripped open, an artery gets cut, all are things that, in a combat situation, will pretty much doom the victim. But not immediately. Sometimes it takes minutes, but many times it takes hours. In any case it is an eternity, and it is a horrible, willful waste. And it's not just the person who's dying who becomes a victim. The people around them, their buddies, the medics, the rescue squads, are all subject to unspeakable trauma because they're the ones left behind. They're the ones who have to deal with what's left. They're the ones who carry the memories of someone holding their intestines in with their hand while they walk, of someone pleading with them to save their life when their legs have been blown off, of someone slowly, gently, calling for their mothers while the last of their blood seeps into the ground.
I don't see any of you even asking these questions, let alone answering them. Many of you have nothing to risk, and so seem not to feel the need. I don't have children right now, but I will one day. As to personal risk in making war policy: it is completely irrelevant. The military must be viewed collectively, not as a collection of individuals. It is the one institution in a democracy that must be viewed that way. If every action was hamstrung by the possibility of individual loss, nothing would ever get done. there are still those who think it was unnecessary for us to enter WWII. Should they have been allowed to stop the effort? Do you speak German or Japanese? As to "warbloggers": it is pointless to characterize them, "us," as the age range is 18-65, married, unmarried, straight, gay, male, female, conservative, liberal, libertarian. For the record, I just turned 44, have never served, am married, and have three children: 18, 15, 2. I guess the oldest two would be at "risk" if we had a draft, but last time I checked we don't. If either of them join, it will be of their own accord, but whether they do or not would have no bearing on my policy decisions. Finally, it isn't individual policy that makes a military service "meaningful." What is "meaningful" about an accident in peacetime? What IS meaningful is the sacrifice and dedication to ideals that goes into serving our country, and that meaning is in effect at all times. Goldberg On the Biz You may have seen this, it came out in May, but industry veteran Danny Goldberg's take on the plight of mid-level artists is instructive:
That this image of art making nice with commerce is as much nostalgia-tinged fantasy as reality does little to diminish the hold it has on the collective unconscious, especially that of singer-songwriters. It should be noted, though, that this golden era of artist development was facilitated by a one-time-only post-war baby boom that dramatically spiked the number of album-friendly record buyers. And any artist around then will tell you that the royalty rates back then were anything but golden. The profits generated by these factors provided the labels the ability to stick with artists for longer periods of time, a k a ''artist development.'' The collapse of artist-development budgets was forestalled in the '80s when $9.98 cassettes were replaced by $16.98 CDs, a ''conversion'' which permitted continued double-digit annual growth despite the smaller Gen X pool of buyers. When sales of catalog CDs reached a saturation point in the early '90s and companies were still required to show the same growth, cutbacks in staff and a reduced commitment to artist development began in earnest. UP UNTIL THE 1970s, record companies unquestionably hoarded a disproportionate share of the profits, and many artists, especially black artists, didn't get paid at all. Over the last several decades, however, as the business grew, a class of lawyers emerged to take advantage of the record companies' needs for marketable product, and the deals themselves have vastly improved for the artists. ....There are, however, still boilerplate formulas called ''packaging deductions'' (a 25 percent reduction from the CD list price) and ''free goods'' (15 percent). Putting aside the murky origins of such clauses, the practical effect is straightforward: they reduce the value of a ''point'' on a $16.98 CD to between 10 and 11 cents. A point is shorthand for a royalty percentage; for the purposes of this article, I am assuming a point equals 10 cents, and that the royalty rate for our hypothetical mid-sized artist is 14 points, or $1.40 per album. So let's take our mid-level artist, and say that she managed to sell 200,000 copies of her latest CD. How does the artist make out? Based on a royalty rate of $1.40 per album, 200,000 CDs sold results in earned income of $280,000. However, before the artist buys her mom a car (or pays off her college loans), she first needs to deal with the dreaded recoupment. If our artist received a $25,000 advance and spent another $115,000 making the record, this $140,000 is deemed recoupable, which means that the label can collect that amount against royalties. Also, let's assume the artist received $70,000 in tour support (recoupable) and another $70,000 in recoupable video and promotional support (this is usually split between the label and artist). That adds up to $280,000 in recoupable advances, thereby canceling out the $280,000 earned by the artist on points from her CD sales. Royalty-wise, it's a wash. (There's a holdback for returns of 15-20 percent, but royalties for these ''reserves'' are usually paid out in 18 months minus any actual returns.) From the Sublime to the Ridiculous Ross and the Dane take on the worst musical collaborations of all time:
But the top two worst collaborations, in my book, are: the entire album Pavarotti & Friends: For Guatemala & Kosovo, which includes one of the most bizarre duets ever: Joe Cocker singing "You Are So Beautiful" & Pavarotti singing something entirely different in Italian, and Natalie Cole's "duet" with Nat King Cole on Unforgettable: A blasphemous, greedy undertaking by Natalie (who can be considered a "pop" musician since she had a hit with Bruce's "Pink Cadillac") that sullied her father's contributions to the musical canon. URGENT - CRITICAL - ALL THAT STUFF! Our interview with RIAA president Cary Sherman is set for 11am (Eastern) tomorrow in conjunction with the launch of Blogcritics.com. Please link the announcement here, which gives a roster of the members and more details on the launch and the site. Thanks and join us at Blogcritics tomorrow!! The Dear Departed Doc has been asking for a list of webcast stations that have been forced off the air by the royalty rates announced by the Librarian of Congress. Here is one, and an excellent roundup of the entire topic as well:
But in March, WZIP ended its Webcasts. Station officials estimated that WZIP would have to pay more than $10,000 a year under a new royalty-fee plan that was then being considered by James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress. Mr. Billington oversees the U.S. Copyright Office. ....The fees are the result of a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 that states that the recording industry and artists should be compensated for music played over the Internet. After months of tense negotiations and arbitration run by the U.S. Copyright Office, Mr. Billington decided in June what fees Webcasters will pay to the record industry. The average college station offering Webcasts -- a licensed noncommercial college station that simultaneously plays its over-the-air broadcasts online -- would pay two-hundredths of a cent per listener per song for every song it plays. The rates are scheduled to be renewed every two years. The next round of negotiations could begin as early as this fall. Although the rates are discussed in hundredths of a penny, Mr. Beck says multiplying them by hundreds of thousands of songs played, and by hundreds of listeners, could mean thousands of dollars in fees for stations. "It looks like nothing, but it adds up to a tremendous amount," he says. ....Many radio stations, both Webcasting and traditional, argue that the fees are unreasonably high. They say a flat rate of about $200 per year would be fair for all parties. Broadcasters say they are even more afraid of a proposal, made by an arbitration panel from the Copyright Office, to require Webcasters to track detailed information about every song they play. Under that proposal, radio and online stations would have to report each song's title, the artist or group that performed it, the album title, the record label, the catalog number, the International Standard Recording Code (which identifies each track of a compact disk), and the date and time of transmission. For each song, the station also has to keep track of how many listeners were online at the time the song was playing. Software to collect that sort of information isn't on the market, station officials say. Even if it were, they add, collecting the information would be prohibitively expensive. ....The fees and proposed record-keeping requirements are unique to online transmissions. Radio stations don't pay fees to the record industry for traditional broadcasts -- the assumption is that the record companies benefit from publicity that leads listeners to buy CD's. But the stations do pay a flat rate, usually around $500 a year, to the songwriters through organizations that support composers, authors, and publishers. Will Robedee, vice chairman of Collegiate Broadcasters Inc., a trade group for campus radio stations, says broadcasters shouldn't have to pay the record industry and the performers because the record labels depend on radio to drum up sales. ....But Amanda Collins, a spokeswoman for the Recording Industry Association of America, says stations could one day make lots of money from playing music online. "Webcasting is in its earliest stage of development," she says. "The fact that they're using our members' works to create a business, that means our members should be compensated." Ms. Collins says the recording industry is willing to continue negotiating with college stations to reach a conclusion that satisfies both sides. "We're hearing the concerns that the college radio stations are raising, and we're prepared to work with them," she says. ....Here are some examples of how much college stations would have to pay under the regulations: * A radio station that Webcasts 15 songs an hour, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and attracts 200 online listeners an hour would pay the recording industry $5,256 per year. * A radio station that Webcasts 15 songs an hour, nine months every year, 18 hours a day and attracts 10 online listeners an hour would rack up fees of $146, but the station would pay the minimum $500 per year. * An online-only station that Webcasts 15 songs an hour, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and attracts 100 online listeners an hour would pay the recording industry $9,198 per year. ....WHO'S OUT AND WHO'S IN The following are some of the college-affiliated radio and online stations that have ceased Webcasting because of the fees and reporting requirements associated with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Arkansas Tech University -- KXRJ-FM Azusa Pacific University -- KAPU-FM Bellevue Community College -- KBCS-FM Cayuga County Community College -- WDWN-FM Central Michigan University -- WMHW-FM Clemson University -- WSBF-FM Colby College -- WMHB-FM Emerson College -- WERS-FM Georgetown College (Ky.) -- WRVG-FM Houston Community College-Southwest College -- http://swc2.hccs.cc.tx.us/iradio New York University -- WNYU-FM Oakland University (Mich.) -- WXOU-FM Ohio Northern University -- WONB-FM Oregon State University -- KBVR-FM San Diego City College -- KSDS-FM San Jose State University -- KSJS-FM Swarthmore College -- WSRN-FM Texas A&M University at Commerce -- KETR-FM Texas A&M University at Kingsville -- KTAI-FM University of Akron Main Campus -- WZIP-FM University of California at Los Angeles -- http://uclaradio.com University of Massachusetts at Amherst -- WMUA-FM University of Pittsburgh Main Campus -- WPTS-FM University of Richmond -- WDCE-FM University of Southern Colorado -- KTSC-FM University of Tennessee at Knoxville -- WUTK-FM University of Wisconsin at Madison -- WSUM-FM University of Wisconsin at Whitewater -- WSUW-FM Virginia Tech -- WUVT-FM William Jewell College -- KWJC-FM Change and Return Justin Sodano's Weigh In has moved, and Gary Farber is back having settled his living arrangements - always a priority. As someone with a book proposal out there making the rounds, this post caught my eye:
People with the faintest familiarity with trade book publishing are now rolling on the floor, frantically gasping for breath in between gales of laughter. Then she complains about the size of her advance, and having to pay some of it back. I impatiently await the announcement that the Coulter and Michael Moore are going on tour together, putting forward identical evidence of How They And Their Side Are Suppressed By The Establishment. (Think Tim Leary and G. Gordon Liddy.) Justin weighs in with:
Nick Gillespie says it best-
Eszterhas may be self-important, but he is right to bemoan the glamorization of smoking in the media and admit his own culpability in this regard. Ares and Athena I have been trying to understand the underlying principle of why my discussions with "techbloggers" regarding the war have seemed like people speaking at each other in different languages. The fundamental disjunction seems to be that war appears a dangerous, serious but necessary and prudent undertaking when the nation is under attack to me and those labeled "warbloggers" (see Matt Welch's perceptive prediction regarding the term), while our opponents seem to feel war is ALWAYS some kind of failure and to be avoided under virtually any circumstances. On the surface the latter philosophy seems reasonable - who "likes" war? - but upon deeper examination, in the real world, this perspective appears to me naive, dangerous, and very shortsighted. Glenn Reynolds has been thinking about this too and he has nailed it:
But part of the reason for different views on the war may stem from different views of war in general. I thought of this in connection with a passage in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, where the character Enoch Root is talking about two kinds of war as personified by the two very different Greek gods with jurisdiction over warfare, Ares and Athena ....In Stephenson's characterization of Ares as representing war in terms of mindless destruction and the practice of glorying in that destruction (with additional measures of macho posturing and egotism blended with ineptitude thrown in) it's easy to see why someone would be against it. And if you think that the Ares version is the sum total of what war's all about, then it's easy to reject any claim that war might be called for, and to brand people who think it's time to resort to war as, well, Ares-like. Which seems to me to be the essence of the antiwar position among many of the techbloggers. ....And, finally, if you don't like the Ares style of war, and don't want Ares-worshippers to wind up running the world, then it's not enough to reject your inner Ares and think peaceful thoughts. You've got to unsling Aegis, and do something about it. ....It would be a bummer if crazed ideologues who want to bring back the 12th century wound up winning that war, just because those who should be forging the latest version of Athena's shield think that any effort to defend oneself smacks of Ares. UPDATE Joanne Jacobs has some erudite thoughts on the matter also:
Blogcritics.com The launch is tomorrow!! Please tell your neighbors, relatives, media, and readers. We will be interviewing Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA as well as posting a boatload or two of great reviews, essays, ruminations and the like. Below is the current roster - if I have missed you, please let me know. If you would like to join us, send me an email. Eric Olsen - Tres Producers Marty Thau - Tres Producers Jim Schwab - JimSpot Jen Rajkowski - Being Jen Rajkowski Marc Weisblott - Weisblog Sulizano - Get Your Drawers On Barbara Flaska - Flaskaland Alex Whitlock - RAWbservations Illway - Illway.com Bruce Baugh - Writer of Fortune 2 Scott Chaffin - The Fat Guy Lionel Mandrake - A Letter From the Olde Countrie Paul Palubicki - Beers Across America Dan Hersam - Amidst a Tangled Web Martin Devon - Patio Pundit Sheila Lennon - Subterranean Homepage News Andrew Duncalfe - The Limey Brit Ed Driscoll - EdDriscoll.com Andy and Tom - World Wide Rant Bobby Allison-Gallimore - Caffeinspiration Kent Qian - Mightier Than the Sword Chris Cotner - Fly Over Country Alwin Hawkins - View From the Heart Sean Hackbarth - The American Mind Andrew Ian Dodge - Dodgeblog John Venlet - Improved Clinch Dawn Olsen - Up Yours Daniel Berlinger - Archipelago Shannon Okey - Bitter Girl Susan Kaup et al - Listen Up! Sean Church - Sean Church J. Shevrin - J. Shevrin.com Mike Hoopty - Hooptyloops Joe Klehe - I'm Not a Cowboy, I Just Found the Hat Tony Pierce - TonyPierce.com Ross S - The Bloviator Phillip Winn - W6 Daily Eric Hallstrom - Chilicheeze Weblog Eric Hallstrom, Steve Sabo, Kevin Gregorius - No Matter What You Heard Problem Drinker - The Minor Fall, The Major Lift Ben Wright - El Weblog... Lennat Mak - Skywriting Donny Broome - Broomeman Michael Croft - Ones and Zeros Pieter K - Cognitive Detritus John Scalzi - Scalzi.com Jimmy Jazz - Analog Roam John Paxety - Paxety Pages John Simmons - North Florida Music Association Armed Liberal - Armed Liberal Ryan Olson - Gimpysoft Gary Higginson - Ticqle Madison Slade - Moxie.nu Seth Werkheiser - Buzzgrinder.com Dan Lewis - Dan Lewis wKen - wKenShow Ken Layne - KenLayne.com Brian Linse - Ain't No Bad Dude Jason Rubenstein - Tonecluster Seth Farber - The Talking Dog Dave Gutowski - Largehearted Boy E.A. Castro - More Inhuman Than Human Nigel Richardson - The Yes/No Interlude Tycen Hopkins - Captain Mojo Zaldor - Zaldor's World Ben Domenech - The Ben File Dan Haar - Ugly Nora Prentiss Riddle - Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada Veshka Valkyrie - Thought Puddles Chari Daignault - Techfluid Georgy Kishtoo - Georgy Kishtoo James Durbin - DurbinWorld Dan Rosenbaum - Over the Edge Jon Dyer - Present Tense Chris Puzak - Distorting the Medium Billy Mabray - News Goat Amber Nussbaum - My Aim Is True Travis Lee - One Golden Spoon Chris Daley - Daley Weather Eric Fagerlund - Buzzard's Blog Jim Carruthers - Resonation - Words Dawson Jackson - Dawson Speaks Ryan McGee - Wading In the Velvet Sea Scott Bell - Confessions of a Jesus Phreak Matt Welch - MattWelch.com Doc Searls - Doc Searls Weblog Tom Carr - TomCarr.com Tim Hall - Kalyr.com Ann Salisbury - Two Tears In a Bucket Oliver Willis - OliverWillis.com Jay Caruso - The Daily Rant John Fogde - Fauxhemian - There Is Nothing To Not Be Amazed At Jason Meltzer - Get Your Online Jargon Mac Frazier - GlennFrazier.com Chuck Pearson - Dr. Chuck's Journal Kevin Holtsberry - Ideas, Etc Paul Musgrave - PaulMusgrave.net Howard Owens - Global News Watch Stephen Silver - Stephen Silver Eric Lindholm - Smarter Harper's Index Steve Rhodes - Steve Rhodes Mark Mavroudis - Intricate Plot Craig Jensen - BookNotes Glenn Reynolds - InstaPundit Dean Cheng Jennie Rose - Jennie Rose Bigwig - Silflay Hraka Eric Lindholm - Smarter Harper's Index Marc Robinson - Enthusiasm John Bates - Johnni Gets Sidetracked Michael King - Ramblings Journal Denise Clark - Denise Clark David Hogberg - Cornfield Commentary Henry Copeland - Blogism Emmanuelle Richard - Emmanuelle UPDATE The online chat with Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, will take place between 11am and noon tomorrow (Eastern) on Blogcritics.com, the new music and book review site of the blogging community. Please see here and here for more details on Blogcritics. Bodies Once every year or two I pinch a nerve in my lower back and it freezes up like a nun's bloomers. I mean it is a clutching, freezing/burning vortex of debilitating agony that can restrict my movement down to small hand gestures. Touch my toes? I can barely see my knees: when I bend my head down, a laser of pain fires down to the volcanic death area and makes me literally yelp. The area where the nerve is pinched becomes irritated and inflamed and becomes a muscle problem as well. The key is to get it loosened up so the nerve can get unpinched and things can settle back to normal. Last night I was feeling particularly pained and pissed off about it - how dare my body turn on me like that ... fucker. Dawn suggested that I shut the hell up and lay down on the floor, and she proceeded to push, pull, knead, whip, chop and puree my back until it really loosened up - not healed but infinitely better, the iron grip relaxed to a manageable tug. She walked on it for a while, getting in a little cardio work for herself, she jumped up and down on it, she cracked my spine like cheap bubblegum. When I stood up I wobbled like a weeble but I could almost touch my toes and even twist to a reasonable degree. Woke up this morning with the tightness back, but not as bad as before and I was able to contort myself around in the tub enough to get some liberating cracks. I'd say getting older blows chunks, but the first time I had something like this I was about 16 - just having a physical body is a great inconvenience from time to time. I am very much looking forward to genetically engineering that shit right out of there - something to look forward to. Sunday, August 11, 2002
Cool Tunes - Playlist Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm on WAPS, "The Summit," in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, jazz, reggae and ska, roots rock, Americana, blues, world, funk, hip hop, avant garde, etc. - if it's cool I play it. Cool Tunes has been proudly serving humanity since 1990. Our audio streaming is better than ever - check us out from anywhere in the world. Cool Tunes 8/10/02 artist "song" album, label Sunday's Best "The Try" The Californian, Polyvinyl; Pixies "Here Comes Your Man" (demo) Pixies, SpinArt; The Agenda "I Want the Panic!" Start the Panic, Kindercore; The Flipsides "The Best of Times" Clever One, Pink & Black; Generation X "100 Punks" Perfect Hits 1975-81, Chrysalis; Dynamite Boy "Catching On" Somewhere In America, Fearless; Ben Weasel "Patience" Fidatevi, Panic Button; Anti-Flag "Ever Fallen In Love?" Split Series 4, BYO; Brad "La La La" Welcome to Discovery Park, Redline; Dag Nasty "Ghosts" Minority of One, Revelation; The Standard "The Five-Factor Model" August, Touch and Go; The High Fidelity "Scream If You Want to Go Faster" Demonstration, Plastique; Twinemen "Spinner" Twinemen, Hi-N-Dry; Bruce Springsteen "Born to Run" Live In New York, Columbia; Carla Thomas "Dance With Me" Gee Whiz, Stax; Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials "Never Miss Your Water" Heads Up!, Alligator; B.B. King "Every Day I Have the Blues" (live) Anthology, MCA; The Holmes Brothers "There's a Train" Righteous!, Rounder; Bonnie Raitt "Give It Up or Let Me Go" Collection, Warner Brothers; Bonnie Raitt "Wherever You May Be" Silver Lining, Capitol; Lyle Lovett "Creeps Like Me" I Love Everybody, Curb/MCA; Flying Burrito Brothers "Cody Cody" Sin City, A&M; Spoon "Stay Don't Go" Kill the Moonlight, Merge; Faultline w Michael Stipe "Greenfields" Our Little Secret 3, First Floor; The Residents "Life Would Be Wonderful" Demons Dance Alone, East Side Digital; Doug Martsch "Heart" Now You Know, Warner Brothers; The Visible Men "Dial Tone" In Socks Mode, Leisure King; Iffy "Sweet Stuff" single, Foodchain; Morcheeba "Otherwise" Charango, Reprise; Charlie Hunter "More Than This" Jazz Chill Out, Blue Note; Ron Carter "Stardust" Stardust, Blue Note; Santana "Samba de Sausalito" The Very Best of Latin Jazz, Legacy/Columbia; Al Di Meola "Innamorata" Flesh On Flesh, Telarc; All That's Left... The remnants of Napster are up for grabs:
Trenwith Securities, a Costa Mesa-based securities firm, was hired by Napster's creditors to help generate interest between now and the Aug. 21 bid deadline. Trenwith has been pitching to everyone from venture capitalists, music retailers and media firms to major record labels that drove Napster into bankruptcy this year. But those interested will have to outbid German publishing giant Bertelsmann, which has promised to bid an additional $9 million at the auction to be held Aug. 27, bringing the total value of its bid to more than $100 million. Bertelsmann advanced Napster, which boasted some 60 million users at its zenith, more than $85 million in loans and is funding the Redwood City, Calif.-based firm's operations during its bankruptcy reorganization. The creditors committee named by the bankruptcy judge, however, is hoping it can do better with Trenwith's help. The committee, which includes the law firm of former Napster lawyer David Boies and some music and software companies, thinks the judge might not count most of Bertelsmann's initial $85 million, in which case the winning bidder could put up as few as $25 million. Amazing Progress We are looking totally tits for the Blogcritics.com launch on Tuesday. Please help spread the word about the launch and our live interview with RIAA pres Cary Sherman. We will pin down the time tomorrow. Super huge thanks to John Scalzi and Glenn "Mac" Frazier for their exceptional efforts beyond the call of duty to design the site and set it up (based upon genius conceptualizing by John, Matt Welch and Ken Layne) so that a technical peabrain such as myself can just waltz in and start posting reviews like a freaking king! (we will be taking Oliver Willis up on some of his suggestions in the very near future as well) The reviews/etc., I have been receiving are outstanding and wildly varied - people are going to be very impressed. There is still time to get in your reviews for the launch, but remember - THERE ARE NO DEADLINES - whenever you turn your material in, it will be published. I very much like the idea of cool stuff trickling in, updating the site on a near-daily basis. Much more on this tomorrow. Please alert the masses about the launch/interview, and if you know anyone who may be interested in the mainstream media, alert their asses too. Thanks so much FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP, EO I Am Telling You That I Am Writing About Telling You I am enjoying the fine gradations of ontology between real life and blogging Maddie is achieving of late. This is life as saga:
"Nice to meet you I'm Moxie and when I'm around people like you I tend to write about them on my web site the next day." He laughed. But it did feel good to tell him up front that he'd likely grace the pages of my blog. Starvation Feared on College Campuses Nationwide! Now they're going to charge you to run over your cat and show up late with the wrong ingredients grown oh so cold?
Spokeswoman Holly Ryan said the rising price of cheese and the cost of making and delivering pizza left Domino's with a choice: Add a delivery fee, raise pizza prices across the board, skimp on ingredients or fire employees. Domino's chose the fee, and it isn't alone... More Showmanship It is Lee Harris's position that 9/11 was more a grandiose act of symbolic showmanship than a rational act of war on the part of al Qaeda. Neal Gabler believes showmanship has played a role in recent corporate scandals as well:
....Traditionally, America's CEOs were like the Bushes: pallid, Ivy League-educated men in club ties, pinstriped Brooks Brothers suits and wingtip shoes. Like their wardrobe, they conveyed a conservative sense of decorum and propriety that dictated they not be seen or heard and that they not court the media. ....As a result of these changes and of changes in U.S. demographics generally, the new corporate world is not as insular as it once was, when the baton of management was passed from one blueblood to the next, from one generation to the next, and everyone was a member of the same WASP club. ....These weren't nobles, secure in their positions and their caste. These were ambitious young men from the ranks of the middle class who had to prove their worth both within their companies and outside them--companies that were themselves newcomers trying to muscle their way into the corporate landscape. The most obvious way to do so was by engineering spectacular growth, which was what investors demanded, and all these men did just that. But by the 1980s, there was another, complementary option. They could earn investor confidence by flaunting their personal fortunes and then impute that display to the company. ....But in the 1980s, a new virus of celebrity infected the country, one feature of which was the "celebritization" of wealth. In a society where celebrity was suddenly considered the most exalted state one could achieve, the rich discovered that a large fortune and an extravagant lifestyle would bring media attention--witness that TV paragon of 1980s overindulgence, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." ....Moreover, this sort of stardom had economic value for the executives' companies. It made Rigas, Lay, Ebbers and the others players at the big corporate table and gave Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia et al. much greater visibility, though it also changed the traditional relationship between CEOs and their companies. Not so long ago executives served their companies. Now the companies served the executives. Or as Kozlowski was fond of saying, "Money is the only way to keep score." This matters because it locates corporate corruption not in the rotten soul of some overzealous CEO but deep in the soul of modern American culture. That makes it much more difficult to extirpate. You can use the stick of criminal prosecution to bring offenders to justice, but it is likely to be of limited effectiveness when the business world itself, like the rest of society, continues to hold out the carrot of stardom. Duped - Not! Keen-minded objectivist that he is, Matt Moore is not to be taken in by the claims and wiles of faith healers! We welcome the return of withering sarcasm to his quiver. A Voice From Greece Nikolas Karanikos blogs from Greece. Here he is on the state of Greek politics:
In foreign relations, the virtual-reality Greek-Turkish "rapprochement" has all but disappeared. Mr Foreign Affairs, Giorgo "To Paedi" Papandreou, is literally the Simitis troupe's "vanishing clown" these days, keeping as low a profile as possible for fear of being mauled by his PASOK comrades wishing to see him croak. Cyprus is at a deadlock -- again. And Greece will be assuming the EU rotating presidency in January 2003. In other words, she will be in charge of the Union during a possible US attack upon Iraq and she will also need to handle "neutrally" the question of common European security policy (with Turkey-land hanging in the wings and sticking to the notion she can partake in EU decision-making as an equal partner).
The Future: Now and Then Moving somewhat into Virginia Postrel territory (finish the book already, we miss you), an interesting look into the future by futurist Glen Hiemstra from just before 9/11:
....Dot-based civilisation began to evolve about 15,000 years ago, as a warmer climate enabled farming of plants and animals. Dot-based bands began to gather in larger groups, eventually in permanent villages. By about 3,000 years ago, the transition was complete in much of the world, and nomads had become farmers and village dwellers. More importantly, first adventurers, then merchants began to establish fixed trade routes between the permanent settlements. The ‘amber route’ evolved in Europe, the ‘silk road’ connected China, India and Europe. Camel caravans crossed deserts and ships began to sail along the coastlines. Travel was on one-dimension, following fixed routes between dots. ....Eventually, trade routes began to cross and overlap, and people began to develop a two-dimensional sense of the world. They thought about the width and length of the world, even speculating on its shape and whether the world had an end. The first two-dimensional maps of the world were drawn. A concept of society emerged in which people in villages in every direction were considered part of the whole. ....Even as the two-dimensional world reached completion, adventurers began to experiment with movement in the third dimension. For two centuries, people attempted to fly using primitive balloons and gliders. Then, just one thousand days into the twentieth century, powered flight became a reality. Within a dozen years aeroplanes were being used in warfare. Passenger service followed soon after. By 1950, 20 million people took commercial flights, and by 2000, over a billion were flying each year. Rockets launched people and satellites into the more distant third dimension. The emergence of three-dimensional culture again spawned new social and political orders, and humanity even began to conceive of the earth itself as a spaceship travelling in three dimensions. ....Now we have begun the move into a fourth dimension, the dimension of cyberspace. The move began decades ago, but is even now in its adolescence. The world of cyberspace provides even greater degrees of freedom and action, and will again redefine wealth, learning and power. This is a world of four dimensions, and no dimensions, a world of instant communication across any distance, and a world of no distance at all. If the shift plays out in a way similar to those that have come before, new orders of wealth, learning, information and power will once again emerge. We might also assume that this change will be accelerated. ....By the year 2025, developments we now consider to be wildcards will quite likely have come to fruition, as living in four dimensions speeds up the exchange of knowledge and learning. We live in a data-flow culture, in which all transistors are connected to all other transistors in one vast global computer. Plugged in, we cannot imagine an unplugged world; Nanoscale replicators have begun to make earlier forms of manufacturing obsolete; Light-based and molecular computing are realities, making the limits of silicon moot; Genomics has moved fully beyond research and development into bio-genetic treatments; Anti-ageing has radically extended the average life span. The dimensionality of the evolution of civilisation, then, provides one frame-work for considering the future in the future’s own terms. At Futurist.com we also explore a second framework, equally compelling. It is the framework of the techno-social-economic revolution. In this way of looking at evolutionary futures, the fundamental equation revolves around technological innovations that have the capacity to change everything, and thus lead to a revolution in how we conduct our social and economic lives.
....Are there scary possibilities in the future? Yes. Super-empowered angry individuals, as Thomas Friedman labeled them in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree," can wreak havoc as never before. Thankfully, pilots obey the rules of the sky-roads and don't aim for buildings. But some hijackers did. Others will find immoral or frightening ways to use technology. But we didn't give up planes, and we shouldn't give up the positive aspects of other technologies. In fact, it is essentially impossible to stop technological advances, even as the technologies have greater potential for good or ill. Historically, more powerful and useful technology has almost always prevailed. It is reasonable to assume that new technological skills and tools will belong to us as we move forward through time. That is what technology is. A tool set. We must remain empowered to choose how to use it wisely. All of us. Doctors, writers, engineers, families, children. Not just the government, although it's simplistic to assume that all governmental uses of technology are bad. Government, after all, is our tool as well, albeit one we must actively watch. Many new capabilities have done us much good. How many American's would do well washing clothes by the side of a stream, or even have easy access to a stream to wash in? How many of us, really, would give up the many technologies that make our lives what they are? Science and technology have historically done far more good than harm. It is reasonable to assume they will continue to do so. When I Lean Left On days I am feeling Liberal (big "L"), Armed Liberal makes a lot of sense. He makes sense other days too, I just not as emotionally drawn to that sense:
See, I am a liberal. I do believe that government should help folks who need help. But seeing us look to help those whose portfolios dropped from $1 million to $100,000 really doesn't make me feel all soft and warm. You were a grownup when you asked for the cards and put your money on the table. Ther's nothing in the Constitution about a vacation house in Aspen. Get over it. But if there were a group of Democrats who were looking at Mike and his parents...trying to figure out how he could retire without working as a greeter at Wal-Mart, and how they could get health care and still pay the mortgage...well, I'd bet there is a consituency out these who would vote for them. I know I would. Certainty Bruce Baugh is a terrific writer who has something worth reading basically every day, and he's been at it long enough now that this isn't a fluke. He should be near the top of your bloggy list. I have been writing a fair amount lately on war/anti-war matters - some of my own, a lot borrowed from others - and I have been doing so from the position of certainty, as one tends to do when one wishes to convince others of the rightness of one's position. But while I may think forcible regime change is important on practical, philosphical, and political levels, that doesn't mean I really know anything more than any other schmo can gather from perusing the media and pondering it all a bit. I am no more certain of any particular outcome than any other prognosticator not blessed with an oracular pipeline. Bruce reminds me of this:
So what I know is that I don't know, and can't readily know enough to form a judgment that I'm willing to tell anyone else they should stake their lives on. It is, or at least it should be, an occasion of some humility and caution to say "if we do this, more will live than if we do that" and "your life may be a fitting price to pay for this". In the end, we will individually and collectively do something - either we act this way or that, or don't, which means not really inaction but acting the other way. We're always doing something. And I think that to advocate a course of action with any expectation that others should heed and agree and do their part to make it happen should be to assume a measure of responsibility for the correctness of one's analysis and for the consequences should it be carried out. ....What I need, therefore, is someone competent to explain things to me. And I don't quite know how to go about finding that person. I can draw on the basic tools of critical analysis, including basic common sense, to interrogate a lot of would-be authorities and find them lacking in moral, intellectual, or experiential standing. I can toss out a lot of bad ideas relatively easily. But would I even necessarily recognize the sort of person I'm looking for? Insofar as it includes the ability to consult and interpret the data I don't have, maybe not. After all, the truth is quite commonly counter-intuitive. I know that I'd give extra respect to those willing to put themselves more directly on the line...but that can be false and irrelevant bravado, too. A good mind might well dwell in a body unfit for front-line action and yet be right. So. Here I am. There are decisions to be made, and while there's been some excellent writing on all sides that I do trust about principles, I'm unsure that just about anyone holding forth at the moment deserves to feel as confidently right as they do. (Constant self-doubt is another form of escape, of course; I should do up a post sometime on the seductions of self-pity and self-defeat. Different topic, though.) I wish that I had a lot more certainty about this...but only insofar as I felt I had good reasons for it. I can, I must, argue from a position of "certainty" or I will not state my position as well or as forcefully as I might, but I must also allow that on a meta level, outside the framework of "the argument," that I could be totally full of shit. I don't think that I am full of shit, but I could be and this is the difference between people who address poltics and culture from a secular framework (whether they are personally religious or not, and I am) and people whose religion controls their political and cultural views. Religion answers to a different - and unverifiable - standard of proof than do matters of this world - like politics and culture - and whereas religious "certainty" is grasped whole as a subjective matter of faith, matters of this world must have objective evidence and/or logical coherence to back them up or we recognize them for what they are: baseless speculation. That is why the realization that our Islamist enemies don't think the same way we do and base all of their assumptions and planning on a subjective fantasy derived not from any evidence from the "real world," but from the authority of the unquestioned fantasy, is so important to understand. Only objective evidence and logical reasoning keep our thoughts from straying into fantasy and as long as we judge politics, culture, public affairs using these objective criteria we will have a tremendous practical advantage over those who don't. Moreover, the emotional and symbolic allure of fantasy thinking is so great that it takes a catyclism like utter defeat to shake people out of it. This is how Japan and Germany could struggle with such certainty until the bitter end, only to be seemingly transformed and open to an all-new worldview once defeat was upon them: as if they awakened from a dream, which in a very real sense, they did. It is my theory that Islamist thinking will respond in such a way to similar defeat, but it is only a theory because I confine certainty to the realm of religion. |
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