It rained pretty much the entire weekend. We went to Mod Club on Friday, which was medium fun. Saturday was rainy. Saw Aussie popsters Sekiden do a brief free show in a record store basement. They are fun. Check 'em out if you can. Bought a shitload of records, including the Smiths singles compilation, an old Vibrators record and the new !!! full-length. On Sunday, we rented "Bubba Ho-Tep", which was fucking funny and weird. I can't even explain the premise. You wouldn't believe me.
Monday, May 31, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
We gotta get out of that place.
Is it just me, or have reports of American casualties in Iraq dried up? I've skimmed a few reports on fighting between American forces and Muqtada al-Sadr's militia in Najaf, all of which mentioned militia casualties, but no mention was made of U.S. deaths or injuries. With the severity of the fighting, you can be sure troops aren't coming out unscathed. So where are the casualties?
The U.S. administration already prohibited coverage of funerals or of the dead returning home, so it wouldn't surprise me if they stopped issuing casualty reports or ordered new outlets not to report them. That way the toll in U.S. deaths will be kept out of sight and out of the minds of the American people. Just like the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths.
The U.S. administration already prohibited coverage of funerals or of the dead returning home, so it wouldn't surprise me if they stopped issuing casualty reports or ordered new outlets not to report them. That way the toll in U.S. deaths will be kept out of sight and out of the minds of the American people. Just like the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths.
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Monday, May 17, 2004
Up the racket.
Mick Jones *hearts* the forthcoming Libertines album. (Keep in mind though, he did produce it). Call it "anticipated".
Set the VCR's: the May 22 Saturday Night Live is a "Best of Chrsitopher Walken" reset.
Set the VCR's: the May 22 Saturday Night Live is a "Best of Chrsitopher Walken" reset.
Friday, May 14, 2004
Drag it up.
One last thing before I plunge back into the booze-athon: the new Old 97s record, Drag It Up is gonna drop July 27th.
Been down so long
Another Friday, another hangover (a unfortunate-and as near as I can tell, the only-drawback to free beer), another truncated post. Back to life next week (hopefully). Till then, why not go listen to the new Streets album (I can hear the Big easy groaning from across the Atlantic)?
Thursday, May 13, 2004
There are no fucking rules, dude.
So, I watched the Nick Berg beheading video. Strong stuff indeed, but it really raised many questions for me. I'm not alone, as Another Day in the Empire has some interesting thoughts about it. I too was struck by the lack of struggle and blood. In fact, I had the impression that Berg was already dead when his killers read their statement to the camera. Granted the video I saw was very poor quality. There are parts where you can't tell what the hell is going on at all. Very strange, but then, what isn't these days?
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
The new barbarians II.
Today, the SCLM is up in arms over the execution of an American civilian worker by a group in Iraq claiming ties to Al Q'aeda. The gruesome footage is being posted all over the interweb, so I can't be bothered to feed the beast here.
Why Nick Berg went to Iraq is unknown. Maybe he wanted to turn a quick buck, maybe he just wanted to help. Whatever the reason, I doubt it warranted having his head sawn off on camera. However, as we brace for the inevitable call for vengeance coming from the neofascist elements of American society, we must keep in mind that meeting barbarism with barbarism is not only contrary to the principles for which "we" claim we're in Iraq to uphold (though only the stupid, naive or willfully blind believe in those anymore), but is precisely the kind of response the men who perpetrated this act are hoping for. Like Bush and his gang, the jihadists want war. They want to widen the rift between North and South, the Arab world and "the rest". Berg's death simply contributes to the all-too prevalent attitude that "these people" are animals and should be treated accordingly. Reprisals against Iraqis (and believe me, they'll happen, whether under official sanction or not) will drive more to the jihadi cause and lock us further into a cycle of violence and brutality from which we'll never escape.
It was a brutal act, more brutal than the execution and subsequent mutilation of the four U.S. mercenaries..er "private security forces" in Fallujah a few weeks back. I'm sure it's equally brutal to the kind of acts occupation troops carry out that we never read about in the papers, but hear whispers of in every corner, acts that would doubtless make the photos from Abu Ghirabi look like the college prank Rush Limbaugh says they were. If I were paranoid (which I undoubtedly am), I would question the sudden appearance of this footage in the midst of the prisoner abuse scandal that had only begun to gain momentum. But even if one casts aside conspiracy theories (which are increasingly becoming the only way to make sense of this fucked up world), there's no doubt in my mind that we are reaching a tipping point. Whether it tips in June with the "transition of power" in Iraq, or in November with the U.S. elections, or some other unknown point remains to be seen, but where the chips fall will pretty much shape the course of history.
To paraphrase the old curse: we live in interesting times.
Why Nick Berg went to Iraq is unknown. Maybe he wanted to turn a quick buck, maybe he just wanted to help. Whatever the reason, I doubt it warranted having his head sawn off on camera. However, as we brace for the inevitable call for vengeance coming from the neofascist elements of American society, we must keep in mind that meeting barbarism with barbarism is not only contrary to the principles for which "we" claim we're in Iraq to uphold (though only the stupid, naive or willfully blind believe in those anymore), but is precisely the kind of response the men who perpetrated this act are hoping for. Like Bush and his gang, the jihadists want war. They want to widen the rift between North and South, the Arab world and "the rest". Berg's death simply contributes to the all-too prevalent attitude that "these people" are animals and should be treated accordingly. Reprisals against Iraqis (and believe me, they'll happen, whether under official sanction or not) will drive more to the jihadi cause and lock us further into a cycle of violence and brutality from which we'll never escape.
It was a brutal act, more brutal than the execution and subsequent mutilation of the four U.S. mercenaries..er "private security forces" in Fallujah a few weeks back. I'm sure it's equally brutal to the kind of acts occupation troops carry out that we never read about in the papers, but hear whispers of in every corner, acts that would doubtless make the photos from Abu Ghirabi look like the college prank Rush Limbaugh says they were. If I were paranoid (which I undoubtedly am), I would question the sudden appearance of this footage in the midst of the prisoner abuse scandal that had only begun to gain momentum. But even if one casts aside conspiracy theories (which are increasingly becoming the only way to make sense of this fucked up world), there's no doubt in my mind that we are reaching a tipping point. Whether it tips in June with the "transition of power" in Iraq, or in November with the U.S. elections, or some other unknown point remains to be seen, but where the chips fall will pretty much shape the course of history.
To paraphrase the old curse: we live in interesting times.
Friday, May 07, 2004
The new barbarians.
Rage of the day: The Edmonton Journal's headline on today's article on the torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq's Abu Gharabi prison reads "Anguish, soul-searching at home of rogue U.S. soldiers" (emphasis mine).
The use of the word rogue is telling, in that it reinforces the notion that the acts of barabarism committed by the "liberators" in Saddam's most infamous house of pain were the isolated acts of a few MPs. However, the evidence is mounting to show that such horrific acts (acts which would be horrible in their own right, yet are worsened by the fact that most of the detainees housed at Abu Gharabi are non-combatants. In other words, the very people the smirking ape of a president and his goon squad claimed to be liberating from tyrrany.) are not isolated, but institutionalized.
(The Whisky Bar has some of the best analysis of the situation, hands down.)
So are we seeing a quiet push in the North American so-called "liberal" media to isolate these acts and draw attention away from what Sid Blumenthal (the Whisky Bar's favorite pundit) calls America's gulag, a prison system that "stretches from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantánamo to secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps 10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan and almost 700 in Guantánamo, but no one knows the exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union."? Or was the choice of words in the above-mentioned headline simply the handiwork of a bored and inattentive copy editor? I don't know, but what I do know that we're talking about the United States of Whatever, nothing is impossible.
(UPDATE)
I wa smulling over America's gulag, and suddenly it hit me: America already has more of its population in prison than any other. Now, in the true spirit of capitalism, they're starting franchises. I wonder what the signs will say? "More than 15,000 served (so far)"?
It also occurred to me that, despite all the "anguish and soul searching" going on in Middle America, how many anguished soul searchers will still vote for that sonofabitch Bush? The thought that people can look at the pictures coming out and still be able to say they support the policies of the man who made them possible makes me sick to my stomach.
The use of the word rogue is telling, in that it reinforces the notion that the acts of barabarism committed by the "liberators" in Saddam's most infamous house of pain were the isolated acts of a few MPs. However, the evidence is mounting to show that such horrific acts (acts which would be horrible in their own right, yet are worsened by the fact that most of the detainees housed at Abu Gharabi are non-combatants. In other words, the very people the smirking ape of a president and his goon squad claimed to be liberating from tyrrany.) are not isolated, but institutionalized.
(The Whisky Bar has some of the best analysis of the situation, hands down.)
So are we seeing a quiet push in the North American so-called "liberal" media to isolate these acts and draw attention away from what Sid Blumenthal (the Whisky Bar's favorite pundit) calls America's gulag, a prison system that "stretches from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantánamo to secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps 10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan and almost 700 in Guantánamo, but no one knows the exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union."? Or was the choice of words in the above-mentioned headline simply the handiwork of a bored and inattentive copy editor? I don't know, but what I do know that we're talking about the United States of Whatever, nothing is impossible.
(UPDATE)
I wa smulling over America's gulag, and suddenly it hit me: America already has more of its population in prison than any other. Now, in the true spirit of capitalism, they're starting franchises. I wonder what the signs will say? "More than 15,000 served (so far)"?
It also occurred to me that, despite all the "anguish and soul searching" going on in Middle America, how many anguished soul searchers will still vote for that sonofabitch Bush? The thought that people can look at the pictures coming out and still be able to say they support the policies of the man who made them possible makes me sick to my stomach.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
Getting good at getting by.
I just found out that my ten year high school reunion is in a week. Oh snap. I may be a little round about the tummy (though probably less so than back in high school) and the once notorious head of hair has thinned dramatically in the intervening years, but at least I'm not saddled with a couple of snot-nosed brats and a mortage for some soulless shitheap in the black heart of suburbia. Nossir: I'm a retarded adolescent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)