*- From my great friend Frederick Yahoo who is the billionaire in charge of Yahoo news.
PARIS - At least two Picasso paintings, worth a total of nearly $66 million, were stolen from the artist's granddaughter's house in Paris, police said Wednesday
The paintings, "Maya and the Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline," disappeared overnight Monday to Tuesday from the chic 7th arrondissement, or district, a Paris police official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said they were worth nearly $66 million, and that there were signs of breaking and entering in the house.
Though police only mentioned the two paintings, the director of the Picasso Museum, Anne Baldassari, said several paintings and drawings were stolen from the home of Diana Widmaier-Picasso.
"It was a very large theft," she said, without giving details.
"Maya and the Doll" is a colorful portrait of a young blonde girl in pigtails, eyes askew in a Cubist perspective. Another version of the painting hangs in the Picasso Museum. It portrays Maya Widmaier, the daughter of Picasso and Marie-Therese Walter, his companion from 1924-1944.
Maya married Pierre Widmaier had three children, Olivier, Richard and Diana Widmaier-Picasso, an art historian and author of a book called "Art Can Only be Erotic."
No other details of the theft were immediately available.
The Art Loss Register, which maintains the world's largest database on stolen, missing and looted art, currently lists 444 missing Picasso pieces, including paintings, lithographs, drawings and ceramics.
Among recent missing Picassos reported to the register was the theft of an abstract watercolor stolen in Mexico, said staff member Antonia Kimbell.
The number of missing Picassos is so high simply because Picasso was so prolific, Kimbell said. She said the Paris theft was "definitely quite significant."
"Anything of particularly good quality, with the provenance of his granddaughter, would reach considerable value on the open market," Kimbell said.
But major pieces, when stolen, usually sell for a pittance, if at all, on the black market because potential buyers are afraid to touch them.
"It's unlikely a legitimate dealer would purchase or acquire any of these pieces," Kimbell said.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Non-Fiction. Non-Symbolic. Simple, Linear & True.
I walked past The Killer today. He is both dressed & groomed immaculately. He never speaks to anyone under any conditions. He does not even as much as nod his head in
acknowledgment. Everyone knows what he is. What he does. He vanishes for weeks at a time. I remember hearing about him for the first time. Donald announced "He's a straight up Killer". What's interesting is most people don't know his real name. They argue back and forth about it. He is a murderer. A Killer. He commits murder on command. He walks around free. He holds a job in a nice, heated marble building. He performs simple, linear menial tasks. The Killer I walk past every single day. I stare at him. He stares back. I glare at him while I wait for an elevator. He eventually looks at the floor and then walks away. I know what he is. I know what he does. He knows I know. I wonder if he would kill me. If someone told him to, he would. "Just following orders". I know what he is. I know what he does. He knows I know.
acknowledgment. Everyone knows what he is. What he does. He vanishes for weeks at a time. I remember hearing about him for the first time. Donald announced "He's a straight up Killer". What's interesting is most people don't know his real name. They argue back and forth about it. He is a murderer. A Killer. He commits murder on command. He walks around free. He holds a job in a nice, heated marble building. He performs simple, linear menial tasks. The Killer I walk past every single day. I stare at him. He stares back. I glare at him while I wait for an elevator. He eventually looks at the floor and then walks away. I know what he is. I know what he does. He knows I know. I wonder if he would kill me. If someone told him to, he would. "Just following orders". I know what he is. I know what he does. He knows I know.
Monday, February 26, 2007
check it ya fucks
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/arts/music/25ratliff.html?ref=music
do it soon because it probably wont be available tomorrow.
make sure to scroll down to the video article because thats whats important with this.
ron ashoton feeds apples to horses in the park in order to relax,
if you didnt have any reasons to get excted before you definitely will now.
do it soon because it probably wont be available tomorrow.
make sure to scroll down to the video article because thats whats important with this.
ron ashoton feeds apples to horses in the park in order to relax,
if you didnt have any reasons to get excted before you definitely will now.
Friday, February 23, 2007
...AND NOW FOR SOMETHING RELEVANT
Soldier gets 100 years for rape, killingBy ROSE FRENCH, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 45 minutes agoFORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -
A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison Thursday for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family last year.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, also was given a dishonorable discharge. He will be eligible for parole in 10 years under the terms of his plea agreement.Cortez, of Barstow, Calif., pleaded guilty this week to four counts of felony murder, rape and conspiracy to rape in a case considered among the worst atrocities by U.S. military personnel in Iraq.In his plea agreement, he said he conspired with three other soldiers from the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division to rape 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. The girl, her parents and a younger sister were all killed.Earlier Thursday, tears rolled down Cortez's face as he apologized for the rape and murders. He said he could not explain why he took part.
"I still don't have an answer," Cortez told the judge. "I don't know why. I wish I hadn't. The lives of four innocent people were taken. I want to apologize for all of the pain and suffering I have caused the al-Janabi family."
The military judge hearing the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley, issued a sentence of life in prison without parole, the maximum for the charges. Under military law, the defendant is given the lesser sentence unless he violates terms of the plea agreement, which requires Cortez to testify against others charged in the case.Psychologist Charles Figley testified that Cortez and the other soldiers likely suffered stress brought on by fatigue and trauma."It eats you up," Figley said. "It's a horrible thing. This is not unique. We've seen this in other wars."Five soldiers who served with Cortez in Iraq testified that his actions were out of character and described the hardships of war they experienced, including sleep deprivation and the lack of running water."I just never would have seen it coming," said Staff Sgt. Tim Briggs, who has known Cortez for five years and served with him in Iraq.
Prosecutors said the stress was no excuse for the actions of Cortez and the other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell.On Wednesday, Cortez described raping the girl in her family's home in Mahmoudiya last March, along with Spc. James Barker, 24. Barker pleaded guilty in November to rape and murder and was sentenced to 90 years in military prison.Barker has said in a sworn statement that the soldiers drank whiskey and played cards while plotting the assault.
Cortez said this week that former private Steven D. Green raped the girl before he did. Then Green shot her father, mother and sister before shooting the teen in the head, Cortez said.He also testified that the soldiers tried to burn the girl's body. They burned their own clothes and threw the murder weapon, an AK-47, into a canal in an effort to dispose of the evidence.Cortez was found not guilty of more serious charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to premeditated murder.
Pfcs. Jesse Spielman, 22, and Bryan Howard, 19, await courts-martial. Green, who is accused of being the ringleader but was discharged from the military before being charged, will be prosecuted in a federal court in Kentucky.
A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 100 years in prison Thursday for the gang rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family last year.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, also was given a dishonorable discharge. He will be eligible for parole in 10 years under the terms of his plea agreement.Cortez, of Barstow, Calif., pleaded guilty this week to four counts of felony murder, rape and conspiracy to rape in a case considered among the worst atrocities by U.S. military personnel in Iraq.In his plea agreement, he said he conspired with three other soldiers from the Fort Campbell-based 101st Airborne Division to rape 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi. The girl, her parents and a younger sister were all killed.Earlier Thursday, tears rolled down Cortez's face as he apologized for the rape and murders. He said he could not explain why he took part.
"I still don't have an answer," Cortez told the judge. "I don't know why. I wish I hadn't. The lives of four innocent people were taken. I want to apologize for all of the pain and suffering I have caused the al-Janabi family."
The military judge hearing the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley, issued a sentence of life in prison without parole, the maximum for the charges. Under military law, the defendant is given the lesser sentence unless he violates terms of the plea agreement, which requires Cortez to testify against others charged in the case.Psychologist Charles Figley testified that Cortez and the other soldiers likely suffered stress brought on by fatigue and trauma."It eats you up," Figley said. "It's a horrible thing. This is not unique. We've seen this in other wars."Five soldiers who served with Cortez in Iraq testified that his actions were out of character and described the hardships of war they experienced, including sleep deprivation and the lack of running water."I just never would have seen it coming," said Staff Sgt. Tim Briggs, who has known Cortez for five years and served with him in Iraq.
Prosecutors said the stress was no excuse for the actions of Cortez and the other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell.On Wednesday, Cortez described raping the girl in her family's home in Mahmoudiya last March, along with Spc. James Barker, 24. Barker pleaded guilty in November to rape and murder and was sentenced to 90 years in military prison.Barker has said in a sworn statement that the soldiers drank whiskey and played cards while plotting the assault.
Cortez said this week that former private Steven D. Green raped the girl before he did. Then Green shot her father, mother and sister before shooting the teen in the head, Cortez said.He also testified that the soldiers tried to burn the girl's body. They burned their own clothes and threw the murder weapon, an AK-47, into a canal in an effort to dispose of the evidence.Cortez was found not guilty of more serious charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to premeditated murder.
Pfcs. Jesse Spielman, 22, and Bryan Howard, 19, await courts-martial. Green, who is accused of being the ringleader but was discharged from the military before being charged, will be prosecuted in a federal court in Kentucky.
OH, THE GUILT
Thanks Kurdt for being an idiot self pitying junkie who fucking killed himself but not before marring the literal asshole of the planet. Way to go, dipshit
"My whole life I try to avoid sports, and here I am in a sporting arena"
Suicide is for assholes
Heroin is for assholes
Being a whiny self obsessed cynical asshole is duh! for assholes
"My whole life I try to avoid sports, and here I am in a sporting arena"
Suicide is for assholes
Heroin is for assholes
Being a whiny self obsessed cynical asshole is duh! for assholes
Thursday, February 22, 2007
He Says What He Says And What He Says Can Be What We Say If We Say Something Now Worth Hearing
There's simply nothing I can add to this, Im ripping it off verbatim from David Byrne's weblog. Read it. He knows what the fuck he says.
2.7.07: Free Will, Part 2: Support Our Troops
Well, should we? Are individual soldiers responsible for their actions? Or are they merely machine parts? “I was only following orders” is the often heard claim when a soldier who committed a human rights abuse or worse is challenged. It is a way of absolving themselves from responsibility. “I just drove the train, pushed the button, flew the plane because my commanding officer told me to.” If we follow this argument, it would be the higher-ups who are then always responsible, yes? But the higher-ups will always absolve themselves of responsibility for My Lai, Chechnya and Abu Graib. They’ll always say that those incidents were the work of “rogue” soldiers, bad apples — or that there were higher-ups yet higher above them who made the order. Or, in the case of Rumsfeld, restructured things to make abuses easier and more likely to happen — and the attendant destruction of civilians and a country. Ultimately, following that logic that makes about 3 or 4 people ultimately responsible, if the buck continues to get passed on up the chain of command. Of course, those 3 or 4 will blame “faulty intelligence” or try to absolve themselves one way or another, and they usually succeed.
But what about the hundreds of thousands who simply do as they are ordered and whose actions in some cases destroy a nation, a population, and hundreds of thousands or millions of lives as a result? People whose actions have devastating and long-lasting repercussions? Sometimes they do these things unwittingly, but what I am dealing with here is the question of what happens when they do realize what is happening. Have participants no will of their own? Do they deny that they have free will in this case? Those who make sure the bombers are running smoothly but didn’t actually shoot anyone — are they not as guilty as those who pull the triggers? (Anyone see the footage of U.S. soldiers zapping Iraqis for a lark? It’s typical war stuff, it always happens. They act like they’re playing a video game, vaporizing civilians.) Are the guys in the green zone in their air conditioned offices and boozy evenings not as guilty as the grunts who massacre civilians? Don’t they, the officers and bureaucrats, facilitate the dehumanization of the locals, and as a result, the rapid dehumanization of their own soldiers? Those who do as they have been commanded, but abandoned all reason, free will, responsibility and common sense? Do soldiers have no apparent impulse or incentive to think about or question a policy or their own actions? Do none of these folks bear any responsibility for their actions? Will Paul Brenner eventually step forward and say, “Oh, sorry, it was my fault, hang me too — I caused as many deaths as Sadam” —? Would Rummy take the heat? Will the gang who beat the war drums armed with lies and deception — Wolfowitz, Perle, Armstrong, Rice, Powell etc. — admit they hold responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths? Would Jeff Sacks admit he helped deliver the Russian people to the gangsters, KGB and oligarchs? Not likely.
I am reminded of the employees of most businesses whose owners are so distant that the employees never think or ask why they are doing something, how the product works, or just as often doesn’t work, why a policy does or doesn’t makes sense, or if a policy might even be counter-productive. Go into almost any store or office cubicle. Alienation, I believe Marx called it, based on his experience in Manchester during the industrial revolution. Most employees as a result of this disconnect simply cover their asses and have no personal investment in making things work better, knowing about the product they sell or how to fix it. It sometimes seems as if war, specifically the soldier, is the model for the alienated worker from his job. The workplace is modeled after the military. This can be a scary efficient machine, when all goes well.
Or, a little voice asks, does each individual soldier have a moral responsibility, and as a human being should he ask of him or herself, “Is my cause just, are the means just, or was I tricked, and if so, should I refuse, or should I lay down my guns and leave?” Do any of the additional 20K troops Bush just ordered (by what right?) into the trenches have any say in the matter? “Am I fighting for what they said I was fighting for?” The reasons for the invasion of Iraq have changed so many times, surely no one believes any of them at this point. Does the foot soldier have a duty to ask, “Is this old man, mother or kid I am about to kill really a terrorist?” Does the ordinary soldier have ANY responsibility to behave morally? If the troops are tired, and if they feel the war is a quagmire in which they are among the unfairly unprotected victims, should they lay down their weapons and walk away? Do they have a moral duty as human beings to do so? Should they be held responsible if they do not act? Is it more patriotic to refuse than to obey? At this point “support our troops” for most Americans means bring them home, quickly and safely.
Cindy Sheehan: "If every peace person just stops one kid from joining the military, that’s one potential American life saved.”
The implication I infer here is that the “kids” she refers to are either being duped or are too stupid to decide or see what’s going on for themselves. Her quote implies, to me, that we have to stop them; alert them, educate them, and deprogram them, because they won’t figure it out for themselves, not until it’s too late. So much for believing in informed citizenry — and, I would argue, so much for democracy as well, because you can’t have the latter without the former.
From the BBC news website:
U.S. war objector pleads not guilty
A U.S. army officer who refused orders to deploy to Iraq has pleaded not guilty to several charges at a court martial.
First Lt Ehren Watada is charged with missing movements and two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer. Lt Watada told the military court at an army base in Washington state that the order to go to Iraq was illegal because the war itself was illegal.
'Illegal and immoral'
The other two charges against Lt Watada stem from statements he has made criticising the war as illegal and immoral. He has said he would have served in Afghanistan, but not Iraq. The military judge, Lt Col John Head, has ruled that Lt Watada can not base his defence on the war's legality. He also ruled that Lt Watada's statements are not protected by the right to free speech under the U.S. constitution. Lt Watada faces up to four years in prison if he is found guilty on all charges.
Talk about disincentive! Why aren’t the church and the temples — the high moral arbiters that they presume to be — jumping up to applaud Watada’s moral stance? What soldier will risk jail and humiliation to speak out? Most just want to serve their time and get out alive.
DS says soldiers’ moral accountability has to be put in the context of their limited options, that economic necessity is a form of coercion. They enlisted, in the case of most U.S. troops, because they had no other economic choice. Their poverty, poor education, and lack of career opportunities back home made those seductive Army ads look pretty enticing and exciting — “Get a college degree! Courtesy of the Army!” Help your country, drive a tank, shoot a missile, and be a respected and honored hero back home! — even if the folks back home doing the honoring and respecting have no idea what nastiness you are now mired in over there. (There are TV ads to join the CIA now too! It’s all good.)
When joining the Army may be the best, or maybe the only, viable life choice, then how can you be held to blame for what you and the Army do? You had no options. Survival is always the prime directive. No other information was available to you at the time. It was either join the Army or deal drugs. What you want a poor boy to do? And besides, how can the foot soldier, the poor grunt, the jarhead, be expected to be up on world politics, history, local culture and language — all the information one might need to weigh the morality of an action? The reporters and news media don’t even do that, so how can the poor soldier be expected to be an informed citizen when the rest of the country isn’t even made of informed citizens. The information to inform them is often so biased, skewed and spun that no intelligent decision can possibly be made. The citizens, here in the U.S. at least, are in a consumer trance most of the time anyway.
The ordinary soldier is trained not to question. To obey without thinking. It sounds like an insult, a criticism, but it’s not. That’s what makes a well-oiled war machine function — you don’t want a discussion when the general commands a forward movement into scary obvious danger. Presumably he knows best and he sees the bigger picture and knows that a reasonable percentage of deaths might be needed to secure a town or accomplish a goal. He has weighed the odds. He may ask you to act against your instincts, against your common sense — and if he is right then he may have saved some lives. It’s for the greater good and he has the big picture. A pause to discuss the matter would be deadly. It would be hilarious as a movie scene — a bunch of dudes having a moral and ethical discussion as the bullets and bombs whiz by. All this assumes our side is the good guys, and the cause is worth fighting for, so the unthinking action is justified in the end. But of course, everyone thinks their cause is just. Maybe right and wrong causes are not the point. Maybe the means, from a moral point of view, is equal to the end. The end does not then justify the means. We have the Geneva conventions for rules defining warfare, as if such a thing is possible. A rulebook for when all hell is breaking loose and people are losing their minds — right.
Circles of Responsibility
If we assume that one does have some responsibility for one’s actions then I ask myself how wide does that responsibility extend? If the American people seem to have grave doubts about the wisdom of committing additional troops to Iraq…and if even the elected president of Iraq, our boy, does not want these troops in his country, then is it not immoral for the American people, and not just W, to send them? Are the people complicit? Are the people not responsible because they have been being willfully misinformed, like DS’s poor uninformed desperate soldiers, and does that then absolve them? Are the hypothetical 3 or 4 guys + Condi Rice truly the only ones responsible? Isn’t that saying that leaders dupe populations and an aggressive nation’s people are as much victims as those they slaughter and abuse?
Let’s assume (big assumption) that the American people suspect that the consequences of these additional troops will not only be additional U.S. casualties, which is obvious and undeniable, but that there will be larger repercussions, which will be tragic, dangerous and long-lasting. Repercussions along the lines of 9/11, but who knows what, when, or where. For example, since the troops are not wanted, even our paid Iraqi friends might turn against the U.S. and join the insurgents. Both Sunni and Shiite will have a common enemy — the U.S. That’s a possibility just for starters.
The question is, at what point do a nation’s people bear some of the responsibility for not stopping illegal unjustified actions? For not even protesting? Does the world hold a generation of Japanese and German citizens “responsible”? Not really, but they sort of do. Ask the Israelis this question about a certain generation of Germans. “Never forget” sort of means “never forgive”. Much of the world is now, if they haven’t already, beginning to hold the American people responsible for the actions of Bush and his crew. Here is a real repercussion — deep distrust and hatred. It can last for generations. For some people in the world, this distrust and hatred will trump the immediate financial incentives the U.S. and the global economy hold out — even easy money, and potential quick profit, which might be gained by cooperating with the Americans, will be seen as undesirable if it means giving up your principles. Shiite philosophy privileges sacrifice if it means adhering to principles over monetary gain.
I would personally love to be more absolutist — to say that every person has a moral obligation to justify his or her own actions. To say that every person has an obligation to dig for the truth and then act accordingly. That every person is responsible for their own actions. All of them. Everyone is accountable. 100%. I would love to take an absolutist stance and say that we all have a duty to know what we are doing. However, I know that absolutism, black and white, good and evil — those hard, clear, simple divisions are how we get into the violent messes in the first place. While everything may not be excused with relativism — surely at some point when babies are being killed (as in Vietnam) “I was following orders” will not hold up as a valid excuse. The divisions, though, are not in fact hard and absolute. Morality and common sense are fuzzy — they’re not forms of binary logic. They do exist, as concepts, and they do guide and inform our behavior, and their levels do seem to rise and fall. But they’re slippery to define. The fever of war sweeps over a people and common sense, morality and reason sink to a frightening low. How do we discourage this fever, this disease, and keep the levels or common sense high and the social body free from infection? Is there such a thing as a psychology of nations, of people? Do nations get neurotic? Crazy? Sad and angry? Bitter and resentful? Proud and arrogant? I think maybe they do.
I suspect that digital thinking, binary logic, the yes/no, pass/fail, good/evil legacy of the enlightenment in some ways fails to match the pragmatic needs of dealing with the real world. Sure, if the digital resolution is high enough, if one has enough variables plugged in and if the computing power of a processor is sufficiently high the result LOOKS like the real world. You can’t see the pixels and it all looks like the multifaceted analog world. But ultimately, breaking the world down into ones and zeros is a form of absolutistism. Doesn’t quantum theory tell us that it’s not in fact an either/or world? That particles are neither here nor there, but can be unsure, or even be in two places at once, or indeterminate?
William Vollmann spent thousands of pages in his multivolume tome The Rising Up and The Rising Down to come up with what he calls “a calculus of violence”. It’s a weird and resonant phrase — I’m sure he made it up for that reason — a phrase that combines and applies the rigor of mathematical logic to passion, death and violence. His aim in that study was to establish guidelines, for himself mainly, that tell when it is morally justified to resort to violence. He asks can we break it down, and are there times when it is indeed justified, maybe even necessary? (I think he says yes.) The book describes various criteria, and if they are met, then violent means are justified as all other means have been exhausted or are not available. It’s hardly a simple Boy Scout manual, though. My abridged copy is 700 pages long, so you can’t easily refer to it on the battlefield or if your spouse pulls a knife on you. And the word calculus is probably very intentional — as I remember it, calculus is system that accommodates multiple variables and values. The curves that calculus generates are movable, they can morph as the variables change. It can accommodate varying contexts and situations; it’s fuzzy, sort of.
So are there no definitive answers to the “support our troops” and the free will questions? Maybe there are not. Ian Buruma, when I saw him talk about the killing of Theo Van Gogh, suggested that context, compassion, common sense and reason can be encouraged and even learnt, and that situations each require their own unique responses. Van Gogh was assassinated for his involvement in a film that offended (Islamic) religious sensibilities. By all accounts he was somewhat insensitive, a provocateur who would have loved to shout out that he has the right to “free speech” and that entitles him to be as offensive as he wants to be. That’s an absolutist point of view — that any racial slur, insult or religious mockery should be allowed, as free speech needs to be absolute. There are, however, limits, says Buruma; limits to tolerance, lines that should not be crossed on both sides — and those limits are justified, given specific circumstances. But he says circumstances are fuzzy, there are no set rules, one has to weigh each situation, each context, use common sense — and what exactly it that? What it isn’t is absolute.
I ask myself who espouses this absolutist black/white view these days? Bin Laden, certainly. Axis of Evil namer and head decider George Bush and Dick Cheney, probably. On and on, right? On every side. Pretty much anyone who is convinced that God is on their side. That covers quite a few. Me, if I think of these folks I’ve just mentioned as absolutely evil, which is pretty easy to do. Does that mean it’s all relative? That there no fixed moral guidelines? If one could but see from their point of view then all ways of thinking might make sense and might even be justified? No, I don’t think so. Not always. I agree that there are limits. There are lines you don’t cross — but they are continually shifting, made of contingencies and the common sense analysis of a situation.
Imagine two dogs meet. The Alpha dog typically demands that the lesser dog back down. Now, imagine that the lesser dog, believing in his rights and the liberty and equality of all canines, refuses to back down. In most cases the Alpha dog will succeed in quickly frightening the lesser dog off from trying to make any inroads, and no harm to either animal results. Maybe a bruised ego for the lesser dog, but that’s all. Some harbored bitterness too, maybe. But suppose the lesser dog, being a principled soul, holds firm to his convictions? (Sometimes that “conviction” is simply equal access to Miss Dog.) Now someone has to get hurt. Pushed to its ultimate conclusion someone has to be incapacitated or killed.
Who was right? Was the lesser dog “right” in sticking to his convictions? What does “right” mean when you are dead? Isn’t “right” actually using common sense — and in this case it might mean backing down? (At least until you’ve got Big Guy outnumbered, outflanked or he’s become too old and your odds of toppling him are decent.) Does Mr. Alpha also have an obligation to back down before it’s too late? I am assuming that, given the usual circumstances, he can’t, or he won’t, unless he determines that he might possibly lose — if he’s outnumbered etc. — in which case he can slink away in shame to an early retirement, leaving lesser dogs to fight it out and determine amongst themselves the new Alpha hierarchy. The rightness, the rules of engagement, change all the time, determined by the situation and circumstances. Experience and common sense teach us how to judge each situation — ideologies and dogmas lead us to behave like deadly idiots. Not everything can be argued to be justifiable, if we can only find the angle from which to view it — there are indeed some wrongs, but maybe they are never hard and fast.
2.7.07: Free Will, Part 2: Support Our Troops
Well, should we? Are individual soldiers responsible for their actions? Or are they merely machine parts? “I was only following orders” is the often heard claim when a soldier who committed a human rights abuse or worse is challenged. It is a way of absolving themselves from responsibility. “I just drove the train, pushed the button, flew the plane because my commanding officer told me to.” If we follow this argument, it would be the higher-ups who are then always responsible, yes? But the higher-ups will always absolve themselves of responsibility for My Lai, Chechnya and Abu Graib. They’ll always say that those incidents were the work of “rogue” soldiers, bad apples — or that there were higher-ups yet higher above them who made the order. Or, in the case of Rumsfeld, restructured things to make abuses easier and more likely to happen — and the attendant destruction of civilians and a country. Ultimately, following that logic that makes about 3 or 4 people ultimately responsible, if the buck continues to get passed on up the chain of command. Of course, those 3 or 4 will blame “faulty intelligence” or try to absolve themselves one way or another, and they usually succeed.
But what about the hundreds of thousands who simply do as they are ordered and whose actions in some cases destroy a nation, a population, and hundreds of thousands or millions of lives as a result? People whose actions have devastating and long-lasting repercussions? Sometimes they do these things unwittingly, but what I am dealing with here is the question of what happens when they do realize what is happening. Have participants no will of their own? Do they deny that they have free will in this case? Those who make sure the bombers are running smoothly but didn’t actually shoot anyone — are they not as guilty as those who pull the triggers? (Anyone see the footage of U.S. soldiers zapping Iraqis for a lark? It’s typical war stuff, it always happens. They act like they’re playing a video game, vaporizing civilians.) Are the guys in the green zone in their air conditioned offices and boozy evenings not as guilty as the grunts who massacre civilians? Don’t they, the officers and bureaucrats, facilitate the dehumanization of the locals, and as a result, the rapid dehumanization of their own soldiers? Those who do as they have been commanded, but abandoned all reason, free will, responsibility and common sense? Do soldiers have no apparent impulse or incentive to think about or question a policy or their own actions? Do none of these folks bear any responsibility for their actions? Will Paul Brenner eventually step forward and say, “Oh, sorry, it was my fault, hang me too — I caused as many deaths as Sadam” —? Would Rummy take the heat? Will the gang who beat the war drums armed with lies and deception — Wolfowitz, Perle, Armstrong, Rice, Powell etc. — admit they hold responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths? Would Jeff Sacks admit he helped deliver the Russian people to the gangsters, KGB and oligarchs? Not likely.
I am reminded of the employees of most businesses whose owners are so distant that the employees never think or ask why they are doing something, how the product works, or just as often doesn’t work, why a policy does or doesn’t makes sense, or if a policy might even be counter-productive. Go into almost any store or office cubicle. Alienation, I believe Marx called it, based on his experience in Manchester during the industrial revolution. Most employees as a result of this disconnect simply cover their asses and have no personal investment in making things work better, knowing about the product they sell or how to fix it. It sometimes seems as if war, specifically the soldier, is the model for the alienated worker from his job. The workplace is modeled after the military. This can be a scary efficient machine, when all goes well.
Or, a little voice asks, does each individual soldier have a moral responsibility, and as a human being should he ask of him or herself, “Is my cause just, are the means just, or was I tricked, and if so, should I refuse, or should I lay down my guns and leave?” Do any of the additional 20K troops Bush just ordered (by what right?) into the trenches have any say in the matter? “Am I fighting for what they said I was fighting for?” The reasons for the invasion of Iraq have changed so many times, surely no one believes any of them at this point. Does the foot soldier have a duty to ask, “Is this old man, mother or kid I am about to kill really a terrorist?” Does the ordinary soldier have ANY responsibility to behave morally? If the troops are tired, and if they feel the war is a quagmire in which they are among the unfairly unprotected victims, should they lay down their weapons and walk away? Do they have a moral duty as human beings to do so? Should they be held responsible if they do not act? Is it more patriotic to refuse than to obey? At this point “support our troops” for most Americans means bring them home, quickly and safely.
Cindy Sheehan: "If every peace person just stops one kid from joining the military, that’s one potential American life saved.”
The implication I infer here is that the “kids” she refers to are either being duped or are too stupid to decide or see what’s going on for themselves. Her quote implies, to me, that we have to stop them; alert them, educate them, and deprogram them, because they won’t figure it out for themselves, not until it’s too late. So much for believing in informed citizenry — and, I would argue, so much for democracy as well, because you can’t have the latter without the former.
From the BBC news website:
U.S. war objector pleads not guilty
A U.S. army officer who refused orders to deploy to Iraq has pleaded not guilty to several charges at a court martial.
First Lt Ehren Watada is charged with missing movements and two charges of conduct unbecoming an officer. Lt Watada told the military court at an army base in Washington state that the order to go to Iraq was illegal because the war itself was illegal.
'Illegal and immoral'
The other two charges against Lt Watada stem from statements he has made criticising the war as illegal and immoral. He has said he would have served in Afghanistan, but not Iraq. The military judge, Lt Col John Head, has ruled that Lt Watada can not base his defence on the war's legality. He also ruled that Lt Watada's statements are not protected by the right to free speech under the U.S. constitution. Lt Watada faces up to four years in prison if he is found guilty on all charges.
Talk about disincentive! Why aren’t the church and the temples — the high moral arbiters that they presume to be — jumping up to applaud Watada’s moral stance? What soldier will risk jail and humiliation to speak out? Most just want to serve their time and get out alive.
DS says soldiers’ moral accountability has to be put in the context of their limited options, that economic necessity is a form of coercion. They enlisted, in the case of most U.S. troops, because they had no other economic choice. Their poverty, poor education, and lack of career opportunities back home made those seductive Army ads look pretty enticing and exciting — “Get a college degree! Courtesy of the Army!” Help your country, drive a tank, shoot a missile, and be a respected and honored hero back home! — even if the folks back home doing the honoring and respecting have no idea what nastiness you are now mired in over there. (There are TV ads to join the CIA now too! It’s all good.)
When joining the Army may be the best, or maybe the only, viable life choice, then how can you be held to blame for what you and the Army do? You had no options. Survival is always the prime directive. No other information was available to you at the time. It was either join the Army or deal drugs. What you want a poor boy to do? And besides, how can the foot soldier, the poor grunt, the jarhead, be expected to be up on world politics, history, local culture and language — all the information one might need to weigh the morality of an action? The reporters and news media don’t even do that, so how can the poor soldier be expected to be an informed citizen when the rest of the country isn’t even made of informed citizens. The information to inform them is often so biased, skewed and spun that no intelligent decision can possibly be made. The citizens, here in the U.S. at least, are in a consumer trance most of the time anyway.
The ordinary soldier is trained not to question. To obey without thinking. It sounds like an insult, a criticism, but it’s not. That’s what makes a well-oiled war machine function — you don’t want a discussion when the general commands a forward movement into scary obvious danger. Presumably he knows best and he sees the bigger picture and knows that a reasonable percentage of deaths might be needed to secure a town or accomplish a goal. He has weighed the odds. He may ask you to act against your instincts, against your common sense — and if he is right then he may have saved some lives. It’s for the greater good and he has the big picture. A pause to discuss the matter would be deadly. It would be hilarious as a movie scene — a bunch of dudes having a moral and ethical discussion as the bullets and bombs whiz by. All this assumes our side is the good guys, and the cause is worth fighting for, so the unthinking action is justified in the end. But of course, everyone thinks their cause is just. Maybe right and wrong causes are not the point. Maybe the means, from a moral point of view, is equal to the end. The end does not then justify the means. We have the Geneva conventions for rules defining warfare, as if such a thing is possible. A rulebook for when all hell is breaking loose and people are losing their minds — right.
Circles of Responsibility
If we assume that one does have some responsibility for one’s actions then I ask myself how wide does that responsibility extend? If the American people seem to have grave doubts about the wisdom of committing additional troops to Iraq…and if even the elected president of Iraq, our boy, does not want these troops in his country, then is it not immoral for the American people, and not just W, to send them? Are the people complicit? Are the people not responsible because they have been being willfully misinformed, like DS’s poor uninformed desperate soldiers, and does that then absolve them? Are the hypothetical 3 or 4 guys + Condi Rice truly the only ones responsible? Isn’t that saying that leaders dupe populations and an aggressive nation’s people are as much victims as those they slaughter and abuse?
Let’s assume (big assumption) that the American people suspect that the consequences of these additional troops will not only be additional U.S. casualties, which is obvious and undeniable, but that there will be larger repercussions, which will be tragic, dangerous and long-lasting. Repercussions along the lines of 9/11, but who knows what, when, or where. For example, since the troops are not wanted, even our paid Iraqi friends might turn against the U.S. and join the insurgents. Both Sunni and Shiite will have a common enemy — the U.S. That’s a possibility just for starters.
The question is, at what point do a nation’s people bear some of the responsibility for not stopping illegal unjustified actions? For not even protesting? Does the world hold a generation of Japanese and German citizens “responsible”? Not really, but they sort of do. Ask the Israelis this question about a certain generation of Germans. “Never forget” sort of means “never forgive”. Much of the world is now, if they haven’t already, beginning to hold the American people responsible for the actions of Bush and his crew. Here is a real repercussion — deep distrust and hatred. It can last for generations. For some people in the world, this distrust and hatred will trump the immediate financial incentives the U.S. and the global economy hold out — even easy money, and potential quick profit, which might be gained by cooperating with the Americans, will be seen as undesirable if it means giving up your principles. Shiite philosophy privileges sacrifice if it means adhering to principles over monetary gain.
I would personally love to be more absolutist — to say that every person has a moral obligation to justify his or her own actions. To say that every person has an obligation to dig for the truth and then act accordingly. That every person is responsible for their own actions. All of them. Everyone is accountable. 100%. I would love to take an absolutist stance and say that we all have a duty to know what we are doing. However, I know that absolutism, black and white, good and evil — those hard, clear, simple divisions are how we get into the violent messes in the first place. While everything may not be excused with relativism — surely at some point when babies are being killed (as in Vietnam) “I was following orders” will not hold up as a valid excuse. The divisions, though, are not in fact hard and absolute. Morality and common sense are fuzzy — they’re not forms of binary logic. They do exist, as concepts, and they do guide and inform our behavior, and their levels do seem to rise and fall. But they’re slippery to define. The fever of war sweeps over a people and common sense, morality and reason sink to a frightening low. How do we discourage this fever, this disease, and keep the levels or common sense high and the social body free from infection? Is there such a thing as a psychology of nations, of people? Do nations get neurotic? Crazy? Sad and angry? Bitter and resentful? Proud and arrogant? I think maybe they do.
I suspect that digital thinking, binary logic, the yes/no, pass/fail, good/evil legacy of the enlightenment in some ways fails to match the pragmatic needs of dealing with the real world. Sure, if the digital resolution is high enough, if one has enough variables plugged in and if the computing power of a processor is sufficiently high the result LOOKS like the real world. You can’t see the pixels and it all looks like the multifaceted analog world. But ultimately, breaking the world down into ones and zeros is a form of absolutistism. Doesn’t quantum theory tell us that it’s not in fact an either/or world? That particles are neither here nor there, but can be unsure, or even be in two places at once, or indeterminate?
William Vollmann spent thousands of pages in his multivolume tome The Rising Up and The Rising Down to come up with what he calls “a calculus of violence”. It’s a weird and resonant phrase — I’m sure he made it up for that reason — a phrase that combines and applies the rigor of mathematical logic to passion, death and violence. His aim in that study was to establish guidelines, for himself mainly, that tell when it is morally justified to resort to violence. He asks can we break it down, and are there times when it is indeed justified, maybe even necessary? (I think he says yes.) The book describes various criteria, and if they are met, then violent means are justified as all other means have been exhausted or are not available. It’s hardly a simple Boy Scout manual, though. My abridged copy is 700 pages long, so you can’t easily refer to it on the battlefield or if your spouse pulls a knife on you. And the word calculus is probably very intentional — as I remember it, calculus is system that accommodates multiple variables and values. The curves that calculus generates are movable, they can morph as the variables change. It can accommodate varying contexts and situations; it’s fuzzy, sort of.
So are there no definitive answers to the “support our troops” and the free will questions? Maybe there are not. Ian Buruma, when I saw him talk about the killing of Theo Van Gogh, suggested that context, compassion, common sense and reason can be encouraged and even learnt, and that situations each require their own unique responses. Van Gogh was assassinated for his involvement in a film that offended (Islamic) religious sensibilities. By all accounts he was somewhat insensitive, a provocateur who would have loved to shout out that he has the right to “free speech” and that entitles him to be as offensive as he wants to be. That’s an absolutist point of view — that any racial slur, insult or religious mockery should be allowed, as free speech needs to be absolute. There are, however, limits, says Buruma; limits to tolerance, lines that should not be crossed on both sides — and those limits are justified, given specific circumstances. But he says circumstances are fuzzy, there are no set rules, one has to weigh each situation, each context, use common sense — and what exactly it that? What it isn’t is absolute.
I ask myself who espouses this absolutist black/white view these days? Bin Laden, certainly. Axis of Evil namer and head decider George Bush and Dick Cheney, probably. On and on, right? On every side. Pretty much anyone who is convinced that God is on their side. That covers quite a few. Me, if I think of these folks I’ve just mentioned as absolutely evil, which is pretty easy to do. Does that mean it’s all relative? That there no fixed moral guidelines? If one could but see from their point of view then all ways of thinking might make sense and might even be justified? No, I don’t think so. Not always. I agree that there are limits. There are lines you don’t cross — but they are continually shifting, made of contingencies and the common sense analysis of a situation.
Imagine two dogs meet. The Alpha dog typically demands that the lesser dog back down. Now, imagine that the lesser dog, believing in his rights and the liberty and equality of all canines, refuses to back down. In most cases the Alpha dog will succeed in quickly frightening the lesser dog off from trying to make any inroads, and no harm to either animal results. Maybe a bruised ego for the lesser dog, but that’s all. Some harbored bitterness too, maybe. But suppose the lesser dog, being a principled soul, holds firm to his convictions? (Sometimes that “conviction” is simply equal access to Miss Dog.) Now someone has to get hurt. Pushed to its ultimate conclusion someone has to be incapacitated or killed.
Who was right? Was the lesser dog “right” in sticking to his convictions? What does “right” mean when you are dead? Isn’t “right” actually using common sense — and in this case it might mean backing down? (At least until you’ve got Big Guy outnumbered, outflanked or he’s become too old and your odds of toppling him are decent.) Does Mr. Alpha also have an obligation to back down before it’s too late? I am assuming that, given the usual circumstances, he can’t, or he won’t, unless he determines that he might possibly lose — if he’s outnumbered etc. — in which case he can slink away in shame to an early retirement, leaving lesser dogs to fight it out and determine amongst themselves the new Alpha hierarchy. The rightness, the rules of engagement, change all the time, determined by the situation and circumstances. Experience and common sense teach us how to judge each situation — ideologies and dogmas lead us to behave like deadly idiots. Not everything can be argued to be justifiable, if we can only find the angle from which to view it — there are indeed some wrongs, but maybe they are never hard and fast.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Just Another Queer Jewish Radical
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
DO YOU KNOW WHAT?
It's St. Valentine's Day...Valentine's Day is anniversary. An anniversary of what, pray tell? St. Valentine's birthday perhaps? Nope, its the annioversary of hsi beheading!
Also, today is Tim Szostak's birthday.
Happy blessed day of birth.
I won't get mawkish other than to say I know Andy is yr biological, but you are the only brother I'll ever have.
PS--- The saxophone sounds real good. Thanks for the message. Our office was closed yesterday.
Monday, February 05, 2007
JOHN RININGER
[Tonight I made a painful discovery on the web. I was looking for any news of gallery shows of an old friend who I haven't seen since last June. Instead I found a small notice of a memorial service for him because he was apparently found dead this past November. He was 45 years old. ]
John was an individual of trully infinite imagination. He was a print artist known throughout Chicago, New York and Germany primarily for his stamp art which you can view a sampling of on this post. I first came to know him when he hired me as his student-assistant in the document department of DePaul University Library in May of 1999. His last question for me, during my interview, was "How would you find yr way out of a wet paper bag?"
The following fifteen months of 'work' were a series of remarkably inspiring conversations. Here was an individual who worked by day in order to spend all night doing the 'real work'. An artist of the truest sense with pure intention and absolutely NO sense of the term "compromise"--someone about twenty years my senior who lived an exemplary existence. I learned so much from him. Whenever he landed gallery shows around town, John always subtely altered his name in order to maintain a slight sense of anonymity..or at least confusion.
When he found out about my joy in making sound collages--he urged me to play them for him at 'work' and mostly championed the pieces that I claimed were "unfinished". He allowed no room for self-consciousness: either you were working on something or you weren't. There was never any posture never any posing--there was no time for that.
Johns favorite album ever ever ever was Ciccone Youth. Over the time we used to hang out regularily, he asked me to make 'another copy' three times over as he claimed to have "worn another one out in the tape machine". Finally I bought him the CD itself and he was so excited about it--the guy almost cried in happiness.
After I graduated college John and I kept in touch mostly through email as he never had a phone. I helped him move once which was a massive undertaking--but also amazing because I realized then how prolific an artis the was... how busy he kept...
Between then and now he'd been ever-present. I ran into him on buses, in stores, on the sidewalk in the middle of the night in the most random neighborhoods. He too, walking and thinking. Talk was never strained: whether it was a week or a year since we last crossed paths, he'd pick up as if in mid-conversation from last time, carry a few thoughts then move along as if we'd just meet back up at work the next day. There was always a great thing in knowing that such a massive presence was out there, in the city limits, hard at work; working down in the mines as Rich would put it.
I last saw him this summer--walking in the field between my apartment and Kate's. He had the same intensity as always and picked up the conversation as though we'd just seen each other on the DePaul campus the day before. He worshiped nestle crunch bars. I will miss him very much.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Yes Annette Funicello, You May!
a few things...no live albums, no compilations, no bootlegs, and generally only one album per artist. Also, when faced with a tough choice my criteria was how many times I played a record vs. how much I objectively may think the other one is superior. If i hadnt had these rules or changed them aroudn this could easily be a drastically different list. Oh and I also followed the Prindle points system so the most loved album gets 73 points not least loved gets one point etc.
BEATLES The Beatles 73
DOORS Strange Days 72
STOOGES Funhouse 71
JANE'S ADDICTION Ritual De Lo Habitual 70
LENNON, JOHN John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band 69
CUBE, ICE Death Certificate 68
MIRAH Advisory Committee 67
PUBLIC ENEMY Fear Of A Black Planet 66
SLEATER-KINNEY Dig Me Out 65
SONIC YOUTH Sister 64
DAVIS, MILES Get Up With It 63
KINKS Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire 62
COLEMAN, ORNETTE Dancing In Your Head 61
ONO, YOKO Approximately Infinite Universe 60
FUNKADELIC America Eats Its Young 59
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. The Flowers Of Romance 58
PRINCE Sign O' The Times 57
FUGAZI In On The Killtaker 56
ROLLING STONES Beggars' Banquet 55
ROXY MUSIC For Your Pleasure 54
SEX PISTOLS Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols 53
BLACK FLAG My War 52
R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction 51
VELVET UNDERGROUND White Light/White Heat 50
THUNDERS, JOHNNY L.A.M.F. 49
COMETS ON FIRE Field Recordings From The Sun 48
SLEATER-KINNEY The Hot Rock 47
BIKINI KILL Pussy Whipped 46
FUGS The Fugs First Album 45
BYRDS The Notorious Byrd Brothers 44
BARRETT, SYD The Madcap Laughs 43
NICO The Marble Index 42
DEAD KENNEDYS In God We Trust Inc. 41
YOUNG, NEIL Comes A Time 40
REED, LOU The Bells 39
BOREDOMS Vision Creation Newsun 38
ANIMALS Every One Of Us 37
MT EERIE “Singers” 36
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The United States Of America 35
RED CRAYOLA Parable Of Arable Land 34
HELL, RICHARD Blank Generation 33
GOSSIP That's Not What I Heard 32
GAYE, MARVIN Here, My Dear 31
MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA Brian Jones Presents: The Pipes Of Pan At Jajouka 30
LIGHTNING BOLT Wonderul Rainbow 29
X-RAY SPEX Germfree Adolescents 28
SANDERS, PHAROAH Summun, Bukmun, Umyun 27
BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE Thank God For Mental Illness 26
HAVENS, RICHIE Richard P. Havens, 1983 25
MICROPHONES It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water 24
BUSH, KATE The Hounds Of Love 23
MEAT PUPPETS Meat Puppets II 22
RAINCOATS Odyshape 21
FLIPPER Album- Generic Flipper 20
BEAT HAPPENING Jamboree 19
BAD BRAINS Bad Brains 18
SUN RA Languidity 17
ROLLING STONES Their Satanic Majesties Request 16
BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS Edutainment 15
VAN HALEN Women And Children First 14
DIGABLE PLANETS Blowout Comb 13
MONKEES Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. 12
WAKHEVITCH, IGOR Docteur Faust 11
RONDELLES Fiction Romance, Fast Machines 10
HALF JAPANESE Our Solar System 9
LAST POETS Last Poets 8
BROTZMANN, PETER Fuck De Boere 7
HEMMINGS, DAVID David Hemmings Happens 6
SHAGGS Philosophy Of The World 5
MINUTEMEN What Makes A Man Start Fires? 4
PUNKS Thank You For The Alternative Rock 3
FROGS It's Only Right And Natural 2
MERZBOW Rectal Anarchy 1
BEATLES The Beatles 73
DOORS Strange Days 72
STOOGES Funhouse 71
JANE'S ADDICTION Ritual De Lo Habitual 70
LENNON, JOHN John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band 69
CUBE, ICE Death Certificate 68
MIRAH Advisory Committee 67
PUBLIC ENEMY Fear Of A Black Planet 66
SLEATER-KINNEY Dig Me Out 65
SONIC YOUTH Sister 64
DAVIS, MILES Get Up With It 63
KINKS Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire 62
COLEMAN, ORNETTE Dancing In Your Head 61
ONO, YOKO Approximately Infinite Universe 60
FUNKADELIC America Eats Its Young 59
PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. The Flowers Of Romance 58
PRINCE Sign O' The Times 57
FUGAZI In On The Killtaker 56
ROLLING STONES Beggars' Banquet 55
ROXY MUSIC For Your Pleasure 54
SEX PISTOLS Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols 53
BLACK FLAG My War 52
R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction 51
VELVET UNDERGROUND White Light/White Heat 50
THUNDERS, JOHNNY L.A.M.F. 49
COMETS ON FIRE Field Recordings From The Sun 48
SLEATER-KINNEY The Hot Rock 47
BIKINI KILL Pussy Whipped 46
FUGS The Fugs First Album 45
BYRDS The Notorious Byrd Brothers 44
BARRETT, SYD The Madcap Laughs 43
NICO The Marble Index 42
DEAD KENNEDYS In God We Trust Inc. 41
YOUNG, NEIL Comes A Time 40
REED, LOU The Bells 39
BOREDOMS Vision Creation Newsun 38
ANIMALS Every One Of Us 37
MT EERIE “Singers” 36
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA The United States Of America 35
RED CRAYOLA Parable Of Arable Land 34
HELL, RICHARD Blank Generation 33
GOSSIP That's Not What I Heard 32
GAYE, MARVIN Here, My Dear 31
MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA Brian Jones Presents: The Pipes Of Pan At Jajouka 30
LIGHTNING BOLT Wonderul Rainbow 29
X-RAY SPEX Germfree Adolescents 28
SANDERS, PHAROAH Summun, Bukmun, Umyun 27
BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE Thank God For Mental Illness 26
HAVENS, RICHIE Richard P. Havens, 1983 25
MICROPHONES It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water 24
BUSH, KATE The Hounds Of Love 23
MEAT PUPPETS Meat Puppets II 22
RAINCOATS Odyshape 21
FLIPPER Album- Generic Flipper 20
BEAT HAPPENING Jamboree 19
BAD BRAINS Bad Brains 18
SUN RA Languidity 17
ROLLING STONES Their Satanic Majesties Request 16
BOOGIE DOWN PRODUCTIONS Edutainment 15
VAN HALEN Women And Children First 14
DIGABLE PLANETS Blowout Comb 13
MONKEES Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. 12
WAKHEVITCH, IGOR Docteur Faust 11
RONDELLES Fiction Romance, Fast Machines 10
HALF JAPANESE Our Solar System 9
LAST POETS Last Poets 8
BROTZMANN, PETER Fuck De Boere 7
HEMMINGS, DAVID David Hemmings Happens 6
SHAGGS Philosophy Of The World 5
MINUTEMEN What Makes A Man Start Fires? 4
PUNKS Thank You For The Alternative Rock 3
FROGS It's Only Right And Natural 2
MERZBOW Rectal Anarchy 1
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