More Mirah!

Here's that link to Lori Goldston's website with four songs from Share This Place. Rumor has it that K is putting out the CD version of this project later this year, though there's nothing about it on their site.

BHIKAJI CAMA

FROM http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/cama.htm

"This flag is of Indian Independence! Behold, it is born! It has been made sacred by the blood of young Indians who sacrificed their lives. I call upon you, gentlemen to rise and salute this flag of Indian Independence. In the name of this flag, I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the world to support this flag." -- B. Cama , Stuttgart, Germany, 1907

These were the emotional words of a frail Indian lady, with fire inside and indomitable confidence and patriotic feeling for motherland, India. The year was 1907 and the time, 3rd week of August. The Indian independence was 40 years away, and the world was not fully aware of the burning patriotism of hundreds and thousands of young Indians who were ready to lay down their lives for the sake of freedom for their country. The British were trying their best to put down the revolutionaries by bringing in ordinances, bans and arrests for life on the basis of treason. Treason was the greatest "crime" of the Indian which ensured a minimum of six years of black waters (kalapani) or deportation to Andaman and harsh punishment.
It was hence, no mean achievement of Madam Cama, when she unfurled the first National Flag at the International Socialist Conference in Stuttgart (Germany) in 1907. A thousand representatives from several countries were attending. An Indian lady in a colorful sari was a rare phenomena in those days and her majestic appearance and brave and clear words made everybody think that she was a Maharani or at least a princess from a native state.

She excelled many Maharanis (queens) of her time in her poise and demeanor. She fought for freedom till the last in her own way, and helped innumerable revolutionaries with money and materials across the sea as she has settled down in London/Paris at the beginning of this century. Her life and mission make a fascinating reading, showing the important role she played in the early years of freedom struggle.

Madam Cama was born on 24th September, 1861 of rich Parsi parents. Her father was Sorabji Framji Patel, a famous merchant and man of means, had a large family. Parsis by then were in the forefront of business, education, and industry (when permitted by British) and no less in philanthropy. Young Bhikaji received good English education, but from the beginning she was a rebel, and a nationalist. She had good flair to learn languages and became proficient in arguing her country's cause in different circles at a young age.

She was married to Rustom K. R. Cama, a rich handsome social worker and lawyer. But ideologically they were poles apart. Mr. Cama adored British, loved their culture and thought they had done a lot of good to India. Madame Bhikaji, now a full fledged nationalist, always believed that British had fleeced India, and practiced worst form of imperialism. She had thousand and one reasons to present how India was kept in abject poverty by the British to help themselves to become the most powerful country in the world of that period.

Their marriage proved to incompatible. Madam Cama meanwhile plunged in several social activities. Plague broke out in Bombay Presidency at that time and she was in the forefront of voluntary team which strive to save plague victims. in the end she herself caught the deadly disease, but was save miraculously. She was left very weak and was advised to go to Europe for rest and recuperation. She left in 1902 for London which was to become her home for the rest of life.

She served as private secretary to Dadabhai Navaroji, a great Indian leader in the forefront of national movement. she came in contact with several patriots students and European Intellectuals who were sympathetic to Indian cause during this brief period. Later she herself played a dominant part in promoting freedom struggle.

The tricolor-flag Madam Cama unfurled had green, saffron, and red stripes. Red represented strength, saffron victory, and green stood for boldness and enthusiasm. there were eight lotuses representing the eight provinces and flowers represented princely states. "Vande Mataram" in Devanagari adorned central saffron stripe which meant "salutation to Mother India." The sun and the moon indicated Hindu and Muslim faiths. The flag was designed by Veer Savarkar with the help of other revolutionaries. After Stuttgart, Madam went to United States. She traveled a lot and informed Americans about Indians struggling for Independence. She told about British efforts to smother the voice of educated Indians who protested against tyranny and despotism of British who always boasted themselves as "mother of parliamentary democracy" over the world! She could be called "Mother India's first cultural representative to USA."

After returning to London she started publishing booklets on patriotic literature. Though believer in nonviolence she urged to resist unjustified violence. Tyrannical foreign rule was unjustified and she stood for Swaraj or self-rule. "March forward! We are for India. India is for Indians!" She declared. She fought for unity of Hindus and Muslims. She continued financing revolutionaries in and out of India. British were not happy with her activities and there was a plot to finish her off. Getting the wind she sailed for France.

Her Paris-home became a shelter for world revolutionaries. Even Lenin, the father of Russian revolution visited her house and exchanged views. Savarkar got all encouragement in writing the history of 1st Indian War of Independence from Cama. She helped its printing in Holland as no English publisher came forward to publish it. It was banned book but found its was to India. Smuggled ingeniously with "Don Quixote" covers! She became publisher of "Vande Mataram" a revolutionary magazine and was a distributor as well, an extremely difficult task in the days of British Espionage. Another magazine "Madan's Talwar" was also started in memory of Madanlal Dhingra who had laid down his life for the country. Both the magazines were outlawed in India and England. Madam Cama somehow found ways to send them to Indian revolution going and for self-defense.

Madam Cama also fought for the cause of women. Speaking at National Conference at Cairo, Egypt in 1910, she asked, "Where is the other half of Egypt? I see only men who represent half the country!" She stressed the role of women in building a nation.
Her attempts to save Savarkar who jumped into the ocean from the ship "Morena" near Marseilles are well known. A few minutes delay saw the famous revolutionary back into chains, a fact which Madam Cama, came to regret for life.

When First World War broke out in 1914, Madam Cama took anti-British stand and tried her best to bring in awareness among Indians about the harm brought in by fighting imperialist forces.

The British had banned her entry in India being afraid of her revolutionary past and confirmed nationalistic outlook. But the lioness was getting old and 35 years fighting on foreign land and taken its toll. She decided to return to motherland but was very ill. After reaching Bombay, she was hospitalized and died on the 13th of August 1936. A fearless woman, she brought in awareness of Indian struggle for independence in Europe and America and was instrumental in helping several revolutionaries, with finances and publishing.


FROM http://www.vandemataram.com/biographies/patriots/bcama.htm

Madam Bhikaji Cama, nee Bhikaji Patel, was born on 24 September 1861 in Bombay. Her father Sorabji Framji Patel and mother Jijibai belonged to a prosperous Parsi business family. This is evident from the fact that he had left 13 lakhs to each of his sons and created a trust of lakh for each of his eight daughters. Very little is known of this affluent family besides that fact that it contributed the first Indian woman revolutionary to fight for India’s freedom from alien rule. She had her education, both primary and secondary, in the Alexandra Girl’s School, then as now, recognised as one of the best educational Institutions for girls in India.
The atmosphere in which she was brought up could by no means be called placid. She was married on 3 August 1885, the very year when the Indian National Congress held its first session in Bombay under the presidentship of W. C. Bonnerji. The atmosphere was alive with a new spirit of defiance and independence which was to blossom into secret societies and evolutionary ardour under the leadership of Aurobindo in Bengal and Tilak in Maharastra.

For a person of young Bhikaji’s temperament, this new spirit became a strong influence in shaping her future. It is not surprising that she found the views of her husband Rustomji Cama too sober. He was an orientalist and as such his interest in politics could hardly be called active. The marriage was not a happy one, largely due to difference of opinion about the conduct of the nationalist movement.

In 1902 Madam Cama left for London for medical treatment. There, her political aspirations received fresh impetus from the Grand Old Man Dadabhai Naoroji whose electioneering she did with great enthusiasm . Before she began her activities, she decided to travel in Europe and America . She visited Germany, France, Scotland and U.S.A. In 1907 she attended the socialist Congress at Stuttgart and unfurled the flag of Indian freedom to the applause of an enthusiastic audience.

In 1908 she went to London to meet Bepin Chandra Pal. During her stay in London and her travels she met other revolutionaries, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Veer Savarkar, Sardar Singh Rana, Mukund Desai and Birendranath Chattopadhyaya, all as concerned and anxious to win the freedom of Indian as Madam Cama. Later she also came into touch with Russian revolutionaries and corresponded with Lenin, although she was not able to accept Lenin’s invitations to visit Moscow after the revolution.

It is fascinating to watch Madam Cama's evolution from social work to evolutionary activity. She began her public life as a social worker and was deeply impressed by the “72 Good Indians” who formed the National Congress. Her intense patriotism and her impatience with things in general made her a militant nationalist. This facet of her life was considerably influenced by Shyamji Krishna Varma and his colleagues. Their ‘India House’ in London soon became the nerve-centre of patriotic extremism.
Madam Cama regularly addressed meetings at the Hyde Park, explaining her patriotic mission of freeing India from British domination. These speeches which attracted large crowds were characterised by deep sincerity and intense patriotism. This naturally drew the attention of Whitehall and she was threatened with deportation. Before that happened, she left for Paris.

From 1909, Paris was her headquarters and the meeting place of young terrorists and revolutionaries like Hardyal, Shaklatvala and others. From here she published passionate appeals to her countrymen to wake up and rebel against foreign rule. Madam Cama was very clear in her mind as to what she had in view. She was convinced that revolutionary methods alone could achieve the end. In her speeches she pointed out that Indians were and had always been a peace loving people, not habituated to violence, but, she said, the condition of her people left in her mind no doubt as to the method she should adopt to achieve freedom. This feeling grew in strength as a result of her contact with Continental and Russian revolutionaries.

Her passion for freedom was so intense that violent revolutionary methods seemed natural to her. In her appeals and speeches, she drew vivid pictures of the misdeeds of the Government, the sad plight of her people and the urgent need for a national uprising against the British. All attempts to prevent the entry of this fiery literature, by interception at the custom, did not dishearten her. She found other means of smuggling revolutionary literature through Pondicherry which at that time was the refuge of revolutionaries who came under the adverse notice of the Indian Government.

Whatever Madam Cama tried to do, she did it with both thoroughness and courage. When she accepted violence as an inescapable method of ousting foreign rule, she organised the training of young revolutionaries for makings bomb. She travelled in Europe and America to appraise the people of the conditions in India and gain their support. When she attended the Socialist Conference at Stuttgart she was not content with only making, or listening to, speeches. She took the opportunity to unfurl the first Indian National Flag, which was indeed the parent and precursor of the flag of independent India, the only difference in color being the change of red into orange.
The legend on the Flag with symbols of sun and moon, the seven stars and lotus and with Vandemataram on the centre white portion, will give some idea of her imagination and nationalism. It was at this conference that she declared her resolve to fight for independence with all her might. She was also the moving spirit in the ‘Abhinav Bharat’ activity of the Indian residing in Europe. These young persons, many of them revolutionaries, had a clear picture of their goal. She declared that India would be Republic and Hindi would be the national language and Devnagari the national script.

Madam Cama was a person of remarkable courage and integrity. Along with the Sardar Singh Rana, she was smuggling revolutionary literature and explosives into India; when Shyamji Krishna Varma and Rana were suspected for smuggling, she went straight to the authorities and confessed that she was responsible for sending weapons to India. When Savarkar was arrested on the French soil she moved heaven and earth to get him released and the result was that socialist papers wrote editorials on this issue.

Her activities for the freedom of her motherland continued unabated till World War I., when England and France become allies and pressure was brought to bear on the French Government to arrest and imprison her. She was in prison for three years till the end of the War. She lived in Paris for 30 years, Nursing to the end of the hope that India’s freedom would be realised in her life time. Her attempts to get back to India did not succeed till authorities were assured that she could not be a threat to get their continuance.

In 1935, at the age of 74, she returned to India and a year after, this great patriot and pioneer revolutionary breathed her last in the Parsi Hospital, unwept, unsung an unhounered. Yet in the minds and hearts of those who love India and the fighters for freedom, her memory will live as an ineffaceable symbol of true sacrifice. A street in Bombay bears her name and a birthcentenary stamp in her honour was issued after much haggling, and belatedly on 26 January 1962 (Republic Day) .

It showed how indifferent we are in honouring those who blazed the trail for Indian freedom. At a Time when women did not participate in public life at all, Madam Cama dedicated herself to revolutionary activity without fear or favour, with only one thought, one aim, that India should become a free republic. She was completely free from any regional or parochial feeling and thought of her country as her home and the people as her kinsfolk.


FROM http://www.zav.org.au/pages/heroes/madame.htm

Born on September 24 th. 1861 into a wealthy Bombay Parsi business family, Bhikaiji went to the Alexandra Girls’ School, well known for its high educational standards, for both her primary and secondary education. Not much else is known of her early years, or of her parents Jijibai & Sohrabji Framji Patel, or their family, from these official sources.

However, born four years after the great Indian mutiny of 1857, and married in 1885, the year of the first session of the Indian National Congress, Bhikaiji grew up in “an atmosphere ... alive with a new spirit of defiance and independence” (Menon in Sen ed. 1972-1974).

Bhikaiji was married to Rustumji Cama, himself an orientalist, (and a son of the famous orientalist Kharshedji Rustumji Cama). Bhikaiji and Rustumji disagreed about the importance and method of the struggle for independence, and largely because of this, the marriage was not a happy one. Madame Bhikaiji Cama began her public life as a social worker. With her own independent fortune, she traveled to Europe and the USA.

In 1902 Bhikaiji went to London for medical treatment, and while there, joined Dadabhai Naoroji in his electioneering. There she met other revolutionaries from all over the world, including Russia (corresponding with Lenin, but later unable to accept his invitation to visit Moscow after the revolution). Bhikaiji attracted large crowds to her speeches at Hyde Park, London. She was the moving spirit of the ‘Abhinav Bharat’ (Indians in Europe) group. India House in the Strand, London, more recently a haven for Indians visiting England, was then a hot bed of the group’s revolutionary activities.

In 1907 she attended the Socialist (International) Congress in Stuttgart where she unfurled for the first time an “Indian” flag*, which she had either designed herself or at least had a good part in designing, also declaring there that independent India would be a Republic, that Hindi would be its language and Devanagari its script. This was an act of heroic defiance against the British Government. [The flag* used today, is very close to her design. Her flag was the original tricolour (a possible French influence) with red where it is orange now. She had the sun, and moon, in the two lower corners, and a row of eight lotus buds in the top portion. In the central part, instead of the chakra, she had the words “Vande Mataram” (I Bow to Thee My Country) in the Devanagri script completing the legend. The inclusion of seven stars in the flag, is mentioned by Menon.

All these activities drew the attention of Whitehall and Bhikaiji was threatened with deportation. She preempted this by moving her headquarters to Paris in 1909. Extremely distressed by the plight of her country, she made passionate appeals to her countrymen to wake up and rebel, her speeches smuggled into India via Pondicherry. She organized the training of revolutionaries. Her “remarkable (personal) courage and integrity” were evident in the acts of rescuing her fellow revolutionaries by taking the blame on herself for the offences (like sending weapons to India) that they were charged with, and securing the release of those threatened with imprisonment, at great risk to herself.

In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, England persuaded France, her new ally, to arrest and imprison Bhikaiji, which France did for the next three years, till the end of World War I. After the war, released from prison but still not free to return to India, Bhikaiji, remained in Paris for another seventeen years. In 1935 aged 74, she was allowed to return to India, when “the authorities were assured of her lack of “threat to their continuance (in ruling India).” A year later “this great patriot and pioneer revolutionary” died in the Parsi General Hospital, “unwept, unsung and unhonoured” (Menon in Sen ed. 1972-1974)

Yet, she will always live on in “the hearts and minds of those who love India”. “ A street in Bombay bears her name, and a birth centenary stamp in her honour was issued “..(Menon in Sen ed. 1972-1974) on Republic Day, 26 th January 1962.



FROM http://www.the-south-asian.com

Parsis - the Zoroastrians of India
by
Sooni Taraporevala
Pioneers of modern India
Modern India owes a large debt to the visionary Jamsetji Tata who had the foresight to lay a firm foundation that would allow India to be economically independent.
His descendant JRD Tata, took over the running of Tata Sons and expanded the business empire even further. A keen aviator, JRD was the first Indian to start a national airline (Tata Airlines) that later became Air-India.

Parsis also established the first cotton mills in India, the first newspaper, the first Indian owned bank. In the navy we had Admiral Jal Cursetji, in the airforce Air Marshal Engineer and the Indian army was commandeered by another Parsi-Field Marshal Sam Maneckshaw. The late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's father Feroze Gandhi also came from the community. And of course there is Zubin Mehta who belongs collectively to every Parsi mother.

Fifty-three years after Independence, we have nothing to fear but ourselves. We are the only community in fertile India that has a diminishing birthrate. We intermarry amongst ourselves, marry late, have few children and have so confused religion and race, that many would like to lay down laws that prohibit anybody from ever becoming either a Parsi or a Zoroastrian. In a political climate where religions vie with each other to gain converts, we zealously try to keep them out.

As we enter the Millennium, Parsis continue to live in several centuries simultaneously, inhabit several identities. Out of these diverse elements we have created a culture that is uniquely our own. Fifty years from now, will we still be around? Will Zarathustra's Good Religion be a living faith, or will the world's first messianic prophet having survived four thousand years, finally be relegated to the history books?

Madame Bhikaji Cama
(1861-1936)
Our radical firebrand, was exiled from India and Britain and lived in France. Bhikaiji was a tireless propagandist for Indian Independence. Russian comrades used to call her India's Joan of Arc. Lenin reportedly invited her to reside in Russia but she did not accept the invitation.

In 1907, she addressed an audience of 1,000 Germans at the Stuttgart Conference. After her impassioned speech she unfurled a flag, a tricolour, which became, with some changes, India's national flag forty years later. As her activities grew more radical the British requested the French to extradite her. The French refused. In 1936, alone and seriously ill, wishing to die in her own country she petitioned the British government to be allowed to return home. Her request was granted, provided she sign what she had refused to all her life; a statement promising she would take no part in politics. She returned to Bombay and after an illness of eight months, died lonely, forgotten and unsung in the Parsi General Hospital.

Talk About Throbbing Gristle...(AND speaking of pictures of fake things)

Apparently Genesis P Orridge got himself a pair of tits.

NO APOLOGY NEEDED

"The Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves. Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags - just amazing. Really beautiful."

Bryan Ferry said this recently and was foreced to apologize, though his apology was dignified and had no Imus style grubbing, its still wildly unnecessary! He said nothing wrong! And I happen to agree with him. Does that make us minions of the fuhrer? Hardly. So, fuck em Bryan we love you.

world's biggest dog!

Yeahohyeah

2 minutes in, I was afraid his drummer and baser were just some session dudes but fuck that...they were henchmen/brethren/madboys!!

Encore

Wow, I really love this picture. Prince Rogers Nelson, age 18 yrs. This photo taken while recording his first album. All songs written by Prince, All vocals and instruments performed by Prince, All production done by Prince.

You Said It, Brother

Sometimes It Snows in April

Tracy died soon after a long fought civil war,
Just after I’d wiped away his last tear
I guess he’s better off than he was before,
A whole lot better off than the fools he left here
I used 2 cry 4 tracy because he was my only friend
Those kind of cars don’t pass u every day
I used 2 cry 4 tracy because I wanted to see him again,
But sometimes sometimes life ain’t always the way
...Sometimes it snows in april
Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish life was never ending,
And all good things, they say, never last
Springtime was always my favorite time of year,
A time 4 lovers holding hands in the rain
Now springtime only reminds me of tracy’s tears
Always cry 4 love, never cry 4 pain
He used 2 say so strong unafraid to die
Unafraid of the death that left me hypnotized
No, staring at his picture I realized
No one could cry the way my tracy cried
Sometimes it snows in april
Sometimes I feel so bad
Sometimes, sometimes I wish that life was never ending,
And all good things, they say, never last
I often dream of heaven and I know that tracy’s there
I know that he has found another friend
Maybe he’s found the answer 2 all the april snow
Maybe one day I’ll see my tracy again
Sometimes it snows in april
Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish that life was never ending,
But all good things, they say, never last
All good things that say, never last
And love, it isn’t love until it’s past

----------------------------------------------------

Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey you

not to take away from FD8...

hey y'all. you all know (and love?) the TRACING THE DIM SIGNAL cover. well, on tuesday my photo instructor will be helping me make large prints (up to 30"x40"). i plan on making a print of the cover at this size, but i also have 16"20" paper too. so if you want one, in either size, let me know by monday night, by way of blog or phone. if you forgot what it looks like, i have it in my myspace pictures.

FALLING DEEP 8 IS GREAT IS ALSO INFINITY SIDEWAYS (FAR OUT)

2007 Only Becomes More Like Heaven After Its Better, First Splish!, Now This...
Falling Deep 8 is Gr8, and holds enough infinity for you & everyone & me. Oh, how I spoil you.

FALLING DEEP 8

Pennies From Heaven- Bing Crosby
Voyage To Atlantis- The Isley Brothers
Evergreen- Brian Jonestown Massacre
Looking At You- MC5
The River- Tim Buckley
Home Is Where The Heart Is- Public Image Ltd.
The Eternal- Joy Division
A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock- LiLiPut
Baqara I- Hafiz Kani Karaca
For Your Pleasure- Roxy Music
U.S.S.A.- Butthole Surfers
Crisis & Compromise- Gray Matter
I Am An Animal- Peter Townshend
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face- Roberta Flack
A Little Bit Independant- Fats Waller
Out Of Time- Rolling Stones
What You See Is What You Get- The Dramatics
You Are Wearing A Mask- Iggy Pop
Everybody Is Going To Make It This Time- Funkadelic

Amazing. Yes? Yes! YOUR copy will get mailed SOON!

GOD BLESS MILESTONE FILMS (and Steven Soderbergh)

JULY 26 THROUGH AUGUST 1 AT THE MUSIC BOX:

KILLER OF SHEEP: FIRST EVER NATIONAL SCREENINGS OF A 30 YEAR-OLD FILM

YOU'RE ALL COMING

meet Knut from the Berlin Zoo (if this doesn't cheer you up, you are a heartless bastard)

oh my lord #1



oh my lord #2



oh my lord #3



oh my lord #4

From the soundtrack of a film that Mirah did with Spectratone International (formerly known as the Black Cat Orchestra) all about insects. I like this, I can't wait to hear the rest.

Heart & Lunx

i have tiny dancing flames about my temples

a flourescent halo

all things as all things

i will time down to a crawl

i vomitted four times last night

i did not sleep but was satisfied laying in bed thinking about sleeping

i listened to screaming on the street at 2am

watched dust fly like a ghost story

if there are no ghosts then why are you afraid?

can you create magic?

can you will it to happen?

are you impervious to distraction

last temptation of christ silent on the television screen

the eternal floating on the stereo

about 7 more minutes till i leave again

his face was in the mirror

his face was on the floor

i changed shape with every step

i watched myself then turned the camera back onto you

you held up a pane of stainless steel

i had moved out of the way

motion is identity

liquid reality

under the door

soaking your clothes

buckling the walls

smearing your features

Please help my friend Rickey out.

If you are between 18 and 30, discreet, and want that certain female spot shaved then caressed with oil,I am your guy. Instead of paying for this service you will leave with more money than you came with. Any questions? Email me. Feel free to enclose a picture of it "before". I'd like that. PS if you're a little uncomfortable, bring a girlfriend along, I'll do you both. Rickey

HAS YOUR DICK TURNED INTO A TREE?

Of course, who's hasnt (unless yr a LAME ASS).

At any rate, Performance is out on DVD.

Do you know what Performance is? If you do, yr cool! If you don't learn you Doosh!

So unless yr part of the Rich Millett International Socialist American Financial Assisstance Grant (RMISAFAG), get yr Stooges tickets. Do it, dont be a LAME ASS.

Whoa, and it has BRANCHES

Guilty as charged

A grand jury just indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby on four accounts of perjury in relation to the Valerie Plame-CIA leak.

This is of no consequence to those from all over the world whose lives have been in upheaval or lost due to the war in Iraq.
This is of no consequence to the American people, who long ago lost the majority of the respect and trust for government agents.
This is of no consequence to Ari Fleischer, who was not indicted for his part in the scandal due to his ratting Libby out, nor to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, rumored to be the actual masterminds of the affair but who will never be indicted because their identities will forever act as a cushion against the crimes they've committed while in power.
This is of little consequence to Libby himself, who if not released after numerous appeals will probably get out of prison early for "good behavior," because he doesn't know how to behave otherwise, and who will be etched into history as a professional scapegoat for an unworthy and unpopular regime.

So what does this verdict mean? Does it mean anything?

Justice is never served, and this is not even the most futile of symbolic victories. This, like the conviction of Martha Stewart for insider trading, is pure smokescreen--it's a delicious morsel for the media to project, and it's a killer way to skirt the real issues involved. Because this trial and resultant media circus was not about lying under oath, or endangering the life of an important government agent working in a volitile area, or about protecting American lives. It was and shall remain about war, the way we perceive and deal with war in this decade, and it is ultimately to our detriment.

Long live the criminal justice system, let freedom reign supreme.

SUDDENLY ALL WAS FORGIVEN

YES!

ALL OF IT!

YOU CAN GO ON WITH YOUR LIVES!

ITS ALL GOING TO WORK OUT!

YOU WILL PERCIEVE CORRECTLY!

EVERYONE WILL BE HONEST!

NO ONE WILL KILL ANYONE!

THE END OF PETTINESS AND CHILDISHNESS (unless you are a child)

THERE'S PEACE

THERE'S REALITY

EVERYONE IS ALRIGHT WITH EACH OTHER

FORGIVEN!

ALL OF IT!

INCLUDING YOU!

YES YOU!

YES

YES

YES

YOU

YOU

YOU

COME ON HOME

IT'S FINE NOW

FINE FOREVER

FIELDS OF BEAUTY

POSSIBILITY

OPPORTUNITY

NOW!

OUR TRUTH KEEPS MARCHING ON (AIN'T THAT AMERICA, BUY A CHEVY)

And when the motor really revs high — as when the show deflects an amateurish Internet scandal involving fake dirty pictures of a contestant, or an “Idol” alumna, Jennifer Hudson, wins an Oscar on Sunday night for her nightingale performance in “Dreamgirls” — it even affords fans a flash of reflected glory. The competition’s finalists may end up in a dubious order (with Ms. Hudson, whom Simon Cowell championed early on, voted off), but each round of “Idol” brings to light stunningly worthy singers. At the same time, it entertains whole families, including the Motown dads and bubble-gum tweens who no turn-of-the-century programmer dared hope would ever share a couch again, much less a protocol for using cellphones to text in votes. It’s a show, in other words, that does exactly what it promises to do. It makes platinum music stars, where “The Apprentice” on NBC mints no great businesspeople, and “The Bachelor” on ABC can’t consecrate a single marriage. And it regularly attracts more than 33 million viewers — young and old, black and white, rich and poor, red state and blue; that’s more than the number who watched the series finale of “Everybody Loves Raymond” on CBS. The content of “American Idol” is also surprisingly wholesome. When a monster hit series amounts to an intergenerational symposium about the music of Gershwin, Mariah Carey and Stevie Wonder , the imperative for niche programming begins to seem quaint. And yet. As the reign of “American Idol” wears on, so does the gnawing suspicion that the whole garish phenomenon is somehow deeply sick. Let us count the ways. In the first season, the worm at the heart of “Idol” was said to be meanness and tackiness. The show was distinctly British, supercilious and cynical. Mr. Cowell, the pitiless judge who still brings to the show the spirit of its British progenitor “Pop Idol,” seemed baffled by the piety Americans brought to the task of singing. Insisting that he wanted nothing but a vanilla hottie to showcase the Pygmalion talents of a guileful music packager, he still couldn’t stop them from singing their hearts out and thanking their moms and God.
To his credit, he eventually let himself be blown away. And he dropped Posh Spice as his paradigm of a musician, settling for Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. (Mr. Cowell, we shouldn’t forget, used to package puppets, cartoon characters and wrestlers as pop stars; he is new to virtuosity.) He and his compatriots had apparently never tangled with contestants like Kelly Clarkson , who’d grown up singing country, or Ruben Studdard , who’d grown up singing gospel. As for the contestants in those early seasons, their sincerity never dropped. Later evidence of the show’s moral corruption was said to come in the voting. In season three, when La Toya London and Ms. Hudson were precipitously bounced despite stellar performances, the judges — Mr. Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul — intimated that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Voters, consultants, auditors and reformers complained of technological snafus, tampering, power-dialers and hackers in cahoots with bookies; charges of systemic racism were even levied, as Ms. London and Ms. Hudson are both African-American. The scandal seemed to capture the spirit of the election year. In May 2004, lamenting the loss of Ms. Hudson from “Idol,” Kate Aurthur wrote in The New York Times, “Like we needed a reminder that the American electoral system is flawed.” In 2005, after displaying some incorrect phone numbers, Fox was even forced to scuttle its schedule and rebroadcast performances for a new vote. “American Idol Outrage: Your Vote Doesn’t Count,” read a May 2005 headline in Broadcasting & Cable magazine. The outcry didn’t stop anyone from trying though, and each finale has set off a bigger flood of votes than the one before. Periodically since the first season, Mr. Cowell, who is the show’s sine qua non, just skips a day. This effrontery has become part of his prissy jerky-boy routine. Fans now watch to see how the show fares without him while he’s “in London on business,” in a mood or otherwise bored by his own hit. Mr. Cowell really keeps us all on a chain, and his strange absences used to cause some in the news media to wonder if “Idol” had lost its ballast. Now they seem like part of the weather, as the ship can mostly steer itself.
The most recent seemingly insuperable problems at “Idol” have not come at the hands of the stern father figure, Mr. Cowell, but from Ms. Abdul, his gentler counterpart. Known at the outset for her busty tops and sweet cheerleading — her “mom I’d like to sleep with” vibe — she has lately become a different kind of mother. Dazed, delirious, sulky, petulant, lascivious: she often looks tired and confused, running some words together and inventing others. Two years ago, a contestant named Corey Clark said Ms. Abdul had courted him and then done him professional favors. ABC deemed the charges exciting enough to devote an ominous and moderately persuasive episode of “20/20” to them, which did double duty as a hit job for the network’s entertainment division. No specifics seemed to stick to Ms. Abdul, who Fox maintained had done nothing wrong, but the aura of loucheness is almost palpable. Gone is the perky soccer mom with the ’80s dance moves. She now regularly wears the pliant smile, smeared makeup and bedroom eyes of a woman who’s about to pass out.
But the personalities of the cast aren’t going to kill this show any more than the chintzy décor or the not-so-shocking voting scandals. “American Idol,” which zigged at just the right time in pop-culture history, revived the square spirit of Lawrence Welk and discovered that we still have a hymnal with Top 40 hits that we might open in unison. The twisted introversion of the panel’s threesome is a serendipitous innovation. Simon, Paula and Randy are much more accessible, paradoxically, than the flirtatious television panels driven by one-upmanship that style themselves as scary cocktail parties. Dad here is maddeningly self-important, and Mom is a spacey doormat. Mr. Jackson, for his part, has come into his own as a caretaking older brother. His arm around the fragile Ms. Abdul seems to console her, and he cuts up with Mr. Cowell just enough for manly credibility without betraying Ms. Abdul. For the American children — in all of us? — who are the show’s base, this gives “American Idol” the ultimate, unassailable brand recognition: It’s a family.

An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial "surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations."They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day," he said.By improving security, the plan's short-term aim is to create time and space for the Iraqi government to bring rival Shia, Sunni and Kurd factions together in a process of national reconciliation, American officials say. If that works within the stipulated timeframe, longer term schemes for rebuilding Iraq under the so-called "go long" strategy will be set in motion.But the next six months are make-or-break for the US military and the Iraqi government. The main obstacles confronting Gen Petraeus's team are:· Insufficient troops on the ground· A "disintegrating" international coalition· An anticipated increase in violence in the south as the British leave· Morale problems as casualties rise· A failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad."The scene is very tense," the former official said. "They are working round the clock. Endless cups of tea with the Iraqis. But they're still trying to figure out what's the plan. The president is expecting progress. But they're thinking, what does he mean? The plan is changing every minute, as all plans do."The team is an unusual mix of combat experience and academic achievement. It includes Colonel Peter Mansoor, a former armoured division commander with a PhD in the history of infantry; Colonel HR McMaster, author of a well-known critique of Vietnam and a seasoned counter-insurgency operations chief; Lt-Col David Kilcullen, a seconded Australian officer and expert on Islamism; and Colonel Michael Meese, son of the former US attorney-general Edwin Meese, who was a member of the ill-fated Iraq Study Group.Their biggest headache was insufficient troops on the ground despite the increase ordered by President Bush, the former official said. "We don't have the numbers for the counter-insurgency job even with the surge. The word 'surge' is a misnomer. Strategically, tactically, it's not a surge," an American officer said.According to the US military's revised counter-insurgency field manual, FM 3-24, written by Gen Petraeus, the optimum "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires 120,000 US and allied troops in the city alone. Current totals, even including often unreliable Iraqi units, fall short and the deficit is even greater in conflict areas outside Baghdad."Additional troops are essential if we are to win," said Lt-Col John Nagel, co-author of the manual, in an address at the US Naval Institute in San Diego last month. One soldier for every 50 civilians in the most intense conflict areas was key to successful counter-insurgency work.Compounding the manpower problems is an apparently insurmountable shortage of civilian volunteers from the Pentagon, state department and treasury. They are needed to staff the additional provincial reconstruction teams and other aid projects promised by Mr Bush.The cut in British troops in southern Iraq, coupled with the actual or anticipated departure of other allies, has heightened the Petraeus team's worries that the international coalition is "disintegrating" even as the US strives to regain the initiative in Iraq, the former official said.Increased violence in the south is expected, caused in part by the "displacement" of Shia militias forced out of Baghdad by the US crackdown. American and Iraq forces entered the militant Shia stronghold of Sadr City on Tuesday for the first time since the surge began. No other major operation has yet been attempted there but "we or the Iraqis are going to have to fight them", one US officer said.According to a British source, plans are in hand for the possible southwards deployment of 6,000 US troops to compensate for Britain's phased withdrawal and any upsurge in unrest.Morale is another concern in the Green Zone headquarters: American forces are preparing for a rise in casualties as the crackdown gathers pace. In a message to the troops after he assumed overall command last month, Gen Petraeus praised their sacrifices while warning of more "difficult times" to come."We serve in Iraq at a critical time ... A decisive moment approaches. Shoulder to shoulder with our Iraqi comrades we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the Iraqi people. The stakes could not be higher," Gen Petraeus said."It's amazing how well morale has held up so far," the former official said. "But the guys know what's being said back home. There is no question morale is gradually being sapped by political debates."The advisers are also said to be struggling to prevent the "politicisation" of the surge by the Shia-dominated government. The fear is that any security advances may be exploited to further weaken the position of Baghdad's Sunni minority.Despite progress this week on a new law sharing Iraq's oil wealth, the Petraeus team believes the government is failing to work hard enough to meet other national reconciliation "benchmarks" set by Mr Bush.Yet it is accepted that the US is asking the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to do what most politicians in normal circumstances would refuse to contemplate. "What we're doing is asking Maliki to confront his own powerbase," one officer said.Possibly the biggest longer term concern of Gen Petraeus's team is that political will in Washington may collapse just as the military is on the point of making a counter-insurgency breakthrough. According to a senior administration official, speaking this week, this is precisely what happened in the final year of the Vietnam war. Steven Simon, the national security council's senior director for transnational threats during the Clinton administration, said a final meltdown in political and public backing was likely if the new strategy was not seen to be working quickly."The implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of US forces. It is now just a matter of time," Mr Simon said in a paper written for the Council on Foreign Relations. "Better to withdraw as a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic response to public opposition... or to a series of unexpectedly sharp reverses on the ground," he said."If it gets really tough in the next few months, it will throw fuel on the fire in Washington," the former official said. "Congress will be emboldened in direct proportion to the trouble in Iraq." If the policy was not judged to be working by Labor Day (the first Monday in September which marks the start of the new political year), Mr Bush could lose control of the policy to Congress and be forced to begin a phased pull-out, he suggested.A senior Pentagon official said this week that it was too early to gauge the strategy's chances of success - but preliminary reports were encouraging. "There are some promising signs. There is a new overall Iraqi commander in Baghdad. A number of joint operations have just begun. The number of political murders has fallen. Iraqi forces are showing up as promised, admittedly a little bit under strength, and are taking up some of the responsibilities that Maliki said he would,"he said. "We have to be realistic. We're not going to stop the suicide bombers and the roadside explosive devices for some time. And the military alone are certainly not going to solve the problem. Maliki has to meet the benchmarks. A civilian surge is needed, too. The Iraqis have to do it themselves."US officials say they also have rising hopes of a breakthrough in Sunni-dominated Anbar province where tribal chiefs are increasingly hostile to al-Qaida and foreign fighters - and are looking to build bridges with moderate Shias.But this week's US decision to join talks on Iraq with Iran and Syria, after previously refusing to do so, is nevertheless seen as an indication of the administration's growing alarm at the possibility of a historic strategic failure.

It's A Swindle!

*- 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.

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.

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.

...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.

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

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.

Just Another Queer Jewish Radical

Clips from recent Mirah performances have been popping up all over YouTube. I don't need to say much else, except she's obviously very well rested and in perfect form. Here are links to some of the performances I found last night.

1
2
3
4
5
6 (new song!)
7
8

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.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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.

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

FUCK WHAT YOU HEARD

Look at the above men. Compare. Do they look defeated? Do they look exhausted? No, of course they don't. Contrary to what EVERYONE will tell you, fire is only extinguished by DEATH. Creativity stops when you DIE. When you are ALIVE you can still BURN and CREATE and CONTRIBUTE and SHINE.

The greatest rock and roll not made by Little Richard was made by The Stooges. You know this. The Stooges recently have made a new album in Chicago. You know this. They posted a new song. It's incredible. You may not know this. FUCK what the doubters say. Critics and cynical defeatists can't create anything. They can't even fuck. FUCK the past. It's not 1970 so there's no point in pretending whether they live or dont live up to a "standard". Who's standards anyway? What's the credibility based on? Where's the contribution? Well, the Stooges have contributed AGAIN. For your life. It's the present, it's real and it is a FUCKING fantastic song. Listen to reality's favorite band.

someone needs to be smacked

so should we stop teaching mark twain in high schools? or how about greek and roman mythology? you have to read what this guy's problem with the cat in the hat, or dr. seuss in general, is. i can't believe the tribune accepted this garbage. or maybe i can.

FALLING DEEP 7 IS HEAVEN

Now for some, 2006 sukt the dix (but not rich) none more so than for william "cuntflowers" bowers, but 2007 goes to 11, after its better. This could only mean Falling Deep 7 is Heaven!
Which also means Falling Deep 7 is here, its queer, its sheer, its King Leer.

without further bono, here is the ultimate impeccable tracklist in a series that redefines the boundaries and is loved like a new puppy throughout America...

FALLING DEEP VOL. 7

Nights In Venice- The Saints
Running Up That Hill- Kate Bush
Samburu- Bomas
I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing (Open Up The Door I'll Get It Myself)- James Brown
Cake- Fire Party
Sekiapu- Adzido
Digital- Joy Division
Jupiter- John Coltrane
The Tinker And The Crab- Donovan
Konyali Hani Benim Elli Dirhem Pastirmam- Louis Matalon
The Window Cleaner- Charles Coburn
You're A Migraine- Bad Brains
Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair- Patty Waters
Swallowtail- The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Piece Of Clay- Marvin Gaye
We Love You- The Rolling Stones
Makan Sedaraban- Udi Marko Melkon Alemsherian

look incredible? of course it does. YOUR copy gets mailed tomorrow morning!

THE MOMENT IS HERE, THE TIME IS NOW!

Hey there my fellow Dogs, Boys & Babies...

Mr. Mark Prindle of markprindle.com

is reaching out to his readers for the annual readers pole! You have to list yr favorite all time top 73 records! See his website for details and requirements! He posts the results in huge unending lists! Do it today!

65

Birthday Wishes for a Very Happy & Blessed 65th Year to the man who unequivocally deserves to be called The Greatest, my hero in life- Muhammad Ali!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Math Worksheet-

Please Santa son,

Now that it makes one month minus four days before my birthday, please have sent to me, 10 albums ofMerzbow. Lplease see that I already have 1930&Dharma7 Now that
the death of AliceColtrane plus movment with Doomsday clock and my pleasent birthday-see that dissent is good and find for me 10 Merzbow albums instead of socks. 1930 and
Dharma is already done though
Lif not then make the Merzbow albums 9-3=???7 Don't try hard just find there worth. Who makes a doomsday clock, did someone get sick or ill for that?

The Really Great Thing About Puppy Bowls

Half provide entertainment/Half provide concession yummies

Who wants to have a Puppy Bowl party?!

(i want to watch the Puppy Bowl! i'm not sure if anyone else cares but I sure do!)

Puppy Bowl is an annual three-hour television show on Animal Planet. Shown opposite the Super Bowl, it has the highest ratings of any show shown at that time on cable besides the Super Bowl [citation needed]. It features a number of puppies playing in a model stadium with no audience, minimal commentary and instant replay shots and bowl cam. As of 2006, a half-time show the "Bissell Kitty Half Time Show" is also included featuring a group of kittens taking the field on a large scratching post for 30 minutes. The first Puppy Bowl was shown in 2005.

The puppies featured in Puppy Bowl are from shelters, and the show contains information on how viewers can adopt rescued puppies and help their local shelter. The bowl seems to have an age limit of 3 months, so there have been no recurring players.

Puppy Bowl II Averaged 690,000 viewers for its broadcast (a 23 percent increase over Puppy Bowl I), equivalent to MSNBC's rating for the State of the Union address. 5 million people in total watched Puppy Bowl II throughout its three airings.

Puppy Bowl III is planned to air on Feburary 4, 2007, with the addition of the Tail-Gate Party.

DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO CONTACT THE TATER-TOTS AT "BLOGGER"?

I HAVE FLAGGED OUR SITE SO THAT ONE OF THE IDIOTS MAY CONTACT IT (US, ME) AND FIX III-DOGBOYBABY SO THAT NO ONE (ME) IS BANNED FROM ADDING COMMENTS (SINCE THEY PROVIDE NO CONTACT INFO ON BLOGGER ITSELF).

Will this work???

I wonder hmmmm...

A Record Sleeve by Phil Elverum

It is dawn. You are just waking up, thinking about putting breakfast together. Each little movement of you going into the day, coming back to life, being born, falls into place as you slowly, deliberately get out of bed and stand up. Leaving your room, you notice the air. Looking at your body, you remember your parents who fed you. Looking around, you realize you already have everything you need; this place is so wealthy. Flexing your leg, you notice no place can hold you, so you can stop running from perceived confines. Being "free," you are born with responsibility. Your parents will not take care of you forever. There is no God. You will not be punished. Deal with yourself. Recognizing problems in the world around you, hold yourself upright and do everything well. Can't you see the equation? The ritual of waking up each day will remind you. The sun rising relentlessly will fill you with reasons to live, prying your eyes open. Don't Smoke. Why would you? Get Off The Internet. There is work to do and the hurricane of your good life is passing by right now just outside the door.