The Littlest Mermaid (part 2)

A few months later Eddie and I were sitting at a cafe table. It was a Saturday morning and the broad avenue by the beach was full of tourists. We were hungover but nothing sunglasses and thick coffee couldn't cure. We had celebrated last night. I had a job!

If you had asked me, though of course you didn't, I would have told you why my pockets were empty. Beauty. Light. Color. Art. It was my camera that led me here, to this city by the ocean. The way the sky was changed by the expanse of water; the way the light reflected off of both changed the faces of the people and the buildings, how sun bleached truth out of makeup and color-washed plaster.

I had shown my photos to someone in the clubs who had a friend downtown. The next time I saw him he handed me a name and address scratched on a scrap of paper. "Darling go see him! I told him about your photos!"

I found the address. "Studio Som Novo" read the sign. At the front desk I asked for the name on the paper. "Gustavo... I am here to see Gustavo." The girl looked at me dubiously over the rims of her glasses, but nevertheless got up from her seat. As she walked away I was sure the little extra shake of her behind was for my benefit. When she returned from an inner office she gave me the up and down. "Senhor Gustavo will see you." I smiled at her, despite the upturn of her nose.

Gustavo wore an ill-fitting suit. But he was friendly. He rose from his desk to shake my hand. "Gigi said you were an excellent photographer."

I was surprised that he called my friend Gigi. Apparently Gilberto and Gustavo knew each other somewhat better than I had assumed. It was a long time before he let go of my hand.

I had come with a folder of photos, and I spread them out on his desk. Faces of people. Bright colors from the market. Children playing on the beach. Musicians. Dancers.

"Nice. Very nice. I need someone with your..." he looked me up and down, a lecher's gleam in his eyes "...talents!"

"We try to put out records every week. Some sell. Some don't. You will take pictures. You get paid if they sell. I will introduce you to our creative director."

And so it began, my humble career. I stopped by where Eddie worked, that salon in the big hotel downtown. I fanned the bills out Gustavo had given me as a small advance. "Baby we are going out to celebrate!"

That was last night. The rest of the evening I remembered dimly. So many drinks. Much laughter. There was that fight at one bar, a drunken tourist laid low across a table, drinks and plates smashing onto the tiled floor, when he refused to stop talking to some tough guy's girl. At some point Roberto found us, he was high as a kite, asking if we had seen Zizi and her American boy. No, we said, and he shuffled off, eyes fixed on a young tourist sitting alone at the bar.

I sipped from my cup and squinted behind my dark glasses, glad for the coffee, which was hot and sweet. Eddie was reading the paper. "Hey look at this." He spread the paper down in front of me, pointing to the full-page advertisement.

"GREAT CONCERT FOR IEMANJA THE STAR OF THE SEA
Sr. Henry Gilson and His Orchestra
featuring A Pequenina Sereia and Her Guitar"

And there in the picture below the gaudily laid out headline was that girl. She looked small and out of place photographed on some bandstand between a row of violinists and three flautists. She gazed at the camera with the look of a deer caught in headlights. The concert was not at some bar or club, but a regular hall. And it was that very week.

I brought the ad to Gustavo that Monday. "Oh yes. Henry's little mermaid. Not much of a nymph, is she? Still a lot of baby fat on that one," he said.

I asked him if he had heard her sing. "There is something about her."

Gustavo pursed his lips. "Henry has been after me to put him on a record. You go to this show. Take pictures. See if you can coax a smile out of your little sea nymph. Everybody needs a pretty girl on their record cover, otherwise it doesn't sell. If you can make her look good maybe I will give Henry what he wants. Iemanja eh? Henry's soul must be blacker than I know."

Feeling dismissed I turned and left his office. I walked around the offices and met my new coworkers. At the front desk the girl with the glasses handed me an envelope with a few bills and two tickets. "Senhor Gustavo says make sure you get a nice photo. No pretty pictures no sales. And no money means this shithole closes down and I am not going back to that typing pool."

I raised my eyebrows. I had no idea our little desk girl had the mouth of a sailor. I assured her I was up for the challenge. I pocketed the envelope.

"So do you have a girlfriend?" she asked not quite coquettishly as I turned to leave. Surely I waited too long to answer. "Pahh," she spat, "another faggot. Just like the rest." She turned back to her desk and waved me out the door.

A few nights later I put a few rolls of film in the pocket of my only suit and slung my cameracase over my shoulder. I was meeting Zizi for a cocktail before the show. I had called her up from a payphone and asked her if she would like to come along.

"It's an assignment for my new job. But it's quite an event. And all very voodoo."

"Oh how exciting! Shall I wear some flouncy white skirt and wrap myself in beads?"

I assured her that was not necessary. This was a society event not some wild ceremony out in the slums. Zizi showed up in one of her usual outfits, a trendy Parisian cocktail dress. A smart little hat with white lace. A madly huge crucifix was pinned with flowers to her breast. "I told Daddy and Grandmama where I was going and Grandmama cried that I was going to be carried off by white slavers. She insisted that I wear this."

The crowd at the hall was huge. But it was not a crowd of the mothers and fathers of the saints but the usual ladies and gentlemen of nighttime society. A few trendy concert goers, women with beautiful skin the color of coffee mellowed with cream had chosen to wrap their hair with intricately folded scarves.

(to be continued)

Orchestra of Morning (part 1)

My name is Hermes and I am tired now and ready to go home. Though I did not come to this shore, this beach to tell you that, nor did you come here to listen to me talk about myself. You came with me to hear about Sereia.

It's finally quiet here, as dawn laps at the shore, the air wet and salty. The air is heavy as my eyelids now, heavy as the cuffs of my pants rolled above my ankles, wet and stained with water and sand.

Flowers lie crushed in the sand behind us as we gaze now out in the water. Did I say quiet? The breeze brings a laugh, a note from a guitar, a crash of a wave. the call of a bird. If the drums of the night are silent now the concert of the new day has begun. I crouch in the shallow water, and rinse my hands of sand and nicotine. I look up again, trying to guess which small paper boat, now flotsam on the waves, sprinkled with petals and fine ash, its precious cargo of candle stub and bits of bone surrendering to the immensity of the ocean. Good-bye Sereia.

"I remember when I first saw her," I tell you. And I am brought back to that night, so many years before. That old club, right on the beach. Quite the scene. It was before I met Ze, too, that old crowd I ran with. Eddie, Zizi, Roberto, and that American boy, what was his name? He was so easy to tease. So serious until he started to drink. Then the object of everyone's attentions, all of us trying to sound so sophisticated, so serious, so grown up.

We were at a table near the stage, hanging lights and clinking glasses and laughing women and the breeze from the sea. Very chic these club patrons, for the night, though who went the next day to their fancy office jobs and who went out looking for the next hustle and who was there drinking off the tabs of friends was anybody's guess. And the subject of much gossip. Zizi always had money but then her father was rich rich rich and though he didn't love it when his only daughter spent his money buying drinks for faggots and negroes he loved to see her beautiful and admired and never told her no. So now you know two of my secrets, the only one that embarrassed me being the one that my pockets were empty.

Musicians filled the stage, and the din of the club narrowed with expectation and polite applause. Oh now we think we are so sophisticated in our tastes with so much to choose from. Very liberated. But then it was all the season of the bossa nova. It made our drinks more delicious, and it caused our bodies to move involuntarily, charging the air around us with cool erotic tension.

This band was like any band that played at this club by the sea and it made us delirious with each other. Zizi kissed that American boy and Eddie rested his hand on my thigh beneath the tablecloth and we were very happy. Zizi stood up to dance, the American boy oh so drunk and clumsy smiled awkwardly and did not follow. Eddie, whose ass was made for the bossa nova, saved the day and rose to carry Zizi off to the dance floor. Roberto, who it must be said spent most of our evenings together gazing longingly at the American boy's blonde hair, slid over to Zizi's chair to engage in subtle flirting with that poor sodden soul, oblivious I used to think, to Roberto's intentions.

Which left me to gaze upon the band and the most remarkable creature I had ever seen. She was playing the guitar. This was no statuesque beauty. Short, with mysterious dark eyes, skin much whiter in color than her bandmates, she couldn't have been thirteen years old, and I realized she could really play. Thick auburn locks fell over her face as she played; bangs heavy on her forehead; a small birthmark on her left cheek. Concentration framed her face as she strummed her guitar. When she started singing it was with the voice of a girl, yes, but a girl who felt things she couldn't have understood, could she? It was haunting, sad, this first song she sang, oh yes lilting in our tropical way, but full of the pain of life beyond thirteen girlish years.

The song ended and she bowed her head into darkness and a smattering of applause and couples changing on the dancefloor. And then the drummer began a fast song, and she looked up, darkness wiped from her face, and she sang exuberantly joined by other members of the band. Freed for a moment from something this girl's eyes twinkled and her compact, androgynous body swung to a different sort of life with this new rhythm.

The song ended and I swear before she left the stage Sereia's dark eyes met mine. Such old old eyes. The deepest saddest gaze I have ever seen. And then the drummer, a very big and very black man very much older than thirteen wrapped his arm around her neck and led her backstage, laughing and gesturing to the other players as they disappeared from sight.

Zizi and Eddie returned and shortly after the waitress brought us more drinks. Surely eventually Zizi handed one of us a wad of paper to settle our bill and we walked out upon the nighttime street to push Zizi into a taxi. Roberto--of course--offered to walk the weaving near senseless American boy off to his pension, leaving Eddie and me to walk down to the dark sands to lie for a while in the invisibility of a moonless night.

"That girl...that singer," I said. "She was something special." Eddie laughed and smiled and kissed me. Here, on the beach, in the sand. And for a moment I forgot about Sereia. For a moment.

Let's hear it for Class War!

It's about time. Nice ad from Obama.

Congratulations, Condi!

Let's hear it for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice! This so-called "expert" on the former Soviet Union has just single-handedly restarted the cold war, with only slight assistance from her boss, the imbecile warmonger George W. Bush.

First they try to strong-arm the foolishly pro-American governments in Poland and the Czech Republic to adopt some "missile defenses" to defend against Al-Qaeda's ICBM launches (!?) in Russia's front yard. And thank goodness Bush already abrogated every arms-control treaty ever signed with Russia and its predecessors, because now that "democratic" and capitalist Russia has a new prime-minister for life, they can just send some missiles back to Cuba and hey, it's 1963 all over again.

Then they support an ass-kissing pro-Israel regime in Georgia, then tell them, "hey we'll back you up" in private all the while urging moderation in public in their dealings with their neighbor whose landmass and army is only like 300 times the size.

Having provoked Russian aggression by backing independence for one European micro-state but not another... and the Russian tanks are rolling. But hey, gas prices are coming down!

So yes, see you in a local fallout shelter. Hope those 1959 biscuits and watercans are still tasty. Go Condi!!

Thou Shalt Not Study War

Surprisingly there are no thick and musty Bibles documenting my family's past printed in English or any other of the family tongues, at least, not that I have seen. While I am not sure in which German plain or valley my father's paternal line had endured the centuries, it's clear that when the Empress Catherine of All The Russias sent out word that fields of brambles and black earth in the southern part of her realm would be opened to development by peasants less barbarous than those currently calling themselves her subjects, my ancestors packed their belongings into wagons and fled the scene of their medieval serfdom for parts eastward.

I'm sure they had family Bibles, since the Horsts were, if nothing else, deeply committed to their obscure rebelliously ultra-Protestant ways. They were all about the swords into plowshares and the not killing and venerating no kingdom but the kingdom of heaven. These were difficult beliefs to hold in central Europe in the centuries when crosses were battle standards and religious sermons were exhortations to go out and kill people who believed differently. These Horsts were not princes nor barons nor generals but simple people who wanted to stay close to God and close to their own.

So they left all that behind, seduced by this German-speaking Empress in a far-off realm who promised them something that sounded an awfully lot like what passed in the eighteenth century for freedom. They would not have to speak Russian. They could build communities around churches of their own choosing, and hold plots of rich land with moderate taxation as long as they promised to plow and till and harvest. And most attractively they would not have to serve in the Empress's army.


But as the years passed Catherine's heirs were definitely not of a mind to emulate that great empress. The Russian people were wondering who the hell these foreigners were in their midst to be given such special rights. The Tsars cried out for allegiance. The Horsts had dodged marching to serve or fight Napoleon. They had dodged the Franco Prussian war. They had dodged being cannonfodder in Crimea. They had dodged a dozen conflicts great and small. But by decree of the Tsar, they would not dodge the next one, and oh yes it was near.

But all good things come to an end and as they sat in that train, crossing in reverse all the frontiers their own forbears had passed not a hundred and fifty years before, travelling from Saratow to Hamburg to board a ship for an ocean voyage they knew, surely as the prophets in their Bible, that it was time to go.

On that train ride they dodged two world wars. The cousins who might have stood in the fields, waving goodbye as they passed, were not seeing that prophecy clearly enough. The wrath of dictators of left and right, the brutal caldron of the first world war and its revolutions, the apocalyptic tide of the second world war, these the cousins would suffer until the world remembered them no more. If the fields and cities of America swallowed the memories of the old world among the generations begat by the travellers, the fire of war and the ice of Siberia would erase the cousins completely leaving neither ruins nor orphans behind.

And so the train reached the docks. If the Babel of Saratow had intimidated them, the crowds in this ancient city girt against the sea must have been beyond the imagination of those Horstsl. Up the gangplank they trudged into the iron belly of a ship far larger than anything they had seen before. From that moment on there would be no looking back. My grandfather's family put their faith in the waves, the children screaming against the bellow of the ship's horns and the clank of chains and thuds of cargo and sweat of their shipmates.

Amen, they must have muttered, Amen.

Norka Farewell

There were a lot of children. And a lot of bags. What went through the minds of my father's grandparents as they bundled those children and bags into what, a wagon? Sweeping out hay and manure to make room for a brood of ginger children, for carefully picked belongings and the house, the furniture, the fields, the church, the life to be left behind there on the banks of the mighty Volga.

The wagon, full with thirteen of them, which uncle or neighbor chosen to stay behind and drive the wagon back to the land, the land not ancestrally theirs, this foreign steppe, but now, decisively, not to belong to their heirs either.

My grandfather, a toddler at best, but not the youngest, so carried by a sister no doubt. In clean sturdy clothes to last for the long journey. Red cheeks wiped of black Russian dirt, tear-stained? The hope of the journey, the pain of the friends and lives and families left behind. Wrinkled stained letters from distant uncles read and re-read, parsed for signs of hope and divined for clues to a hidden future.

Did the cart's wheels creak and strain as it passed the wooden church buildings that was everything to these simple people, strangers always in the land of their birth. Nine children, loud no doubt. Well-behaved, certainly, but the sounds of high children's voices teasing and playing in German as the Tsar's grim agents checked papers, and documents, and poked, and prodded, and vaguely disapproving of this alien entourage, yet glad to be rid of yet another cartload of privileged strangers, wondering what buonty was to be gained from the space left empty behind them.

Was it to a train station in Saratow, this cartload of German farmchildren from the little village called Norka, past the farms and villages and churches of their cousins, past the factories and the brick buildings of the big city, through the throngs of actual Russians and Jews and Tatars staring at them with curiosity, or disdain, my great-grandparents knowing enough Russian, surely, to interpret the sneers of good-riddance or the wistful glances of I wish that was me. Papers checked again by the young soldiers at the station.

The children, literate enough to read their German bibles and sing their German hymns, staring now at the proliferation of signs in Russian, the signs denoting arrivals and departures, that much was surely clear, warnings surrounding the crowded black train spitting steam. Uniformed workers scurried about seeming to placate this monstrous black machine lest it storm ahead on its iron and stone path. The smell of the fields was gone now, replaced with smoke and soot and coal and tar and sweaty bodies and fear and hope.

Children and bags carefully counted, thrown together now and none missing, not into the cheapest boxcar but not into the car with the plush red velvet either. Much shouting in frightening now foreign tongues, and the reassuring cluck of my great grandmother, and the doors were closed and the whistles blew and the faces of the people stilled and the train came to life and then, right then, my grandfather--was he drooling on a piece of sugar to keep him silent--ceased to be a little Volga German farm boy and became someone else, as did I, not yet a glint in anyone's eye.

Tap Tap!

My drag queen friend Candy Samples tells it like it is about the DL Republican hypocrite set. And it's one damn catchy tune. Go Candy!!

Yours truly is in the cast.

Look, ma, I'm a post modernist!

I thought I'd copy my comments from another blog. Having a to-do in an Obama section with a shrill leftist. Like I once was. I've not copied my opponents comments but you can surely infer what they were!

There hasn't been a mass movement with any political impact in this country since the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, with the possible exception of the right-wing evangelical churches. The US just doesn't work that way, no matter how much the left wishes it did.

---

The Vietnam war ended because a) the North Vietnamese military was winning, b) the costs vs benefits for the American government didn't add up and c) the US wanted to be pals with China against the Soviet Union and withdrawal from VIetnam was part of the ticket. Sadly, the antiwar movement--which I completely supported and participated in--was not effectual and imploded into cultural and political disarray and demoralization. Its more serious elements were subverted by the state.

I don't mean to condemn the idea of mass movements. It's just the hyperbole of the left clouds the very real history of defeat after defeat due in large part because the left has no actual message nor actionable methodology besides being against "bad" things and for "good" things. The left routinely stomps its feet, winds up handing what little power it has to democrats, and is left sitting alone in the dust.

The left's role is little more than a steam valve for unhappiness, and a fairly irrelevant steam valve at that. Sad, but the way it is. No amount of sounding super revolutionary will cover up the left's complete failure to intersect with the consciousness of Americans.

LIke it or not, the real choice for Americans right now in this plane of reality is Obama vs. McCain. I now who I'm choosing. How about you?

--

1) the immigration movement is made up of people who (laudably) just don't want to be deported. either its members will be deported or they will gain citizenship. end of movement.

2) abortion was made legal by an action of the supreme court; an action made possible by evolving consciousness not the (laudable) declarations of the feminist movement. ERA? Yeah that didn't happen did it.

3) the GLBT community is not a movement. as you can plainly see here on JMG it's about as politically diverse as humanly possible. yes Stonewall gave us some gumption. When I first moved to NYC there was a big gay political movement which I was extremely active in. You know what? They're mostly dead, my friends on the left and foes on the right. Our progress as a community came from the recognition of our humanity, and it pains me to say this, not because being gay was a revolutionary act or because of a serious of movement-based victories.

My point, and sorry for drawing this out, is that it's not the shouting that wins

Barack Hussein Osama?

This hilarious slice of satire on the upcoming New Yorker is, to my mind, the perfect distillation of right-wing American stupidity. Sadly, in going over the heads of those morons who actually do believe Obama is a muslim, it's not hard to imagine it becoming un-ironic rightwing propaganda.

Obama casts a disgusting vote

Quite unnecessarily, Barack Obama has cast his vote in favor of the senate bill revising FISA to allow warrentless wiretaps and grant immunity against telecommunications companies who cooperated with Bush's justice department and might be prosecuted for violating the law during Bush's reign of illegality.

Even Hillary Clinton had the sense to vote against this bill. By casting this vote, Obama has betrayed his original opposition to the war, and made the same capitulation to Bush's violations of the constitution that Congress has made over and over, repeatedly enabling the rule of lying scumbags without apparent threat of reproach.

I'm truly disgusted.

Which One the War Hero, Which One the Criminal?

There's been a big flap over John McCain and his war record. It started when former U.S. general (and now Democrat) Wesley Clark stated that McCain's years in a prison camp in Vietnam after being shot down didn't automatically grant him the experience necessary for the office of president. While some people--mostly right-wingers--went on to suggest some duplicity in McCain's POW time, most everybody, including Democratic candidate Obama went on to laud McCain's service and say it should never be questioned or criticized. McCain's time as a POW and veteran makes him a hero, they said.

Well I for one would beg to differ.

What, exactly, was John McCain doing when he was shot down over North Vietnam during the U.S. war of aggression? Was he delivering humanitarian messages? Dropping toys and candies to babies? Perhaps enlightening Vietnamese with peace propaganda? I think not. John McCain was a military officer on a bombing mission aimed at killing innocent people and destroying Vietnam's civilian infrastructure. He owes the debt of his life, saved by Vietnamese rescuers who McCain continued to call "Go*ks" well into his post-war political life, to those he was mercilessly trying to murder.

In my opinion this does not qualify McCain for the role of hero. He was not some unfortunate draftee forced to serve thousands of miles from home. He was a career military man, an officer not an enlisted man, a member of military management, if you will, plotting and carrying out the near genocidal war the US waged against the Vietnamese using all manner of weapons including chemical weapons and weapons that had no possible intended function but the maxiumum extermination of civilian life. McCain belongs not in the white house but in prison.

Nguyen Van Troi (1947-1964) was a young South Vietnamese man who, acting for the National Liberation Front--the so-called Viet Cong--attempted to assassinate Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who were both visiting Vietnam scheming to increase US military commitments to the corrupt South Vietnamese dictatorship. Van Troi was executed at the age of 17.

Now THAT is a hero of the Vietnam war.

Thomas Disch, 1940-2008

Writer Thomas Disch has died. Apparently bereft over ill-health and the death of his partner, the speculative fiction writer committed suicide.

His "On Wings Of Song" is one of my favorite books. I'm saddened that a writer so important to my growing up is gone. But I feel clueless in somehow not actually knowing before that Disch was gay. I guess I must have assumed it in some way: the sexuality in "On Wings Of Song" is so true and clear it could only have come from a gay man. The book tells the story of a near future--now even closer and easier to see--when right-wing religious fundamentalists rule the land, when food shortages force people to eat doggie kibble, and when people find comfort in artists embracing and re-envigorating outdated forms of art or in transcendant drug-like states. It's a funny book, and a tragic one, but its hints of gay identity meant a lot to me as a young man and I read and re-read it many times.

Thanks Thomas Disch. May you find peace.

Oh No He Didn't.....

Un believable item on the Huffington Post.

So the PRESIDENT of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is having a state visit with President Bush and this is what he says:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

He is referring, of course, to his kitchen help. The mind boggles.

And now a few words about John McCain

Sheer awesomeness.

The Democrats' Future War Problem

Several things have been evident on the world stage lately. First, the Iraq "war" is on hold until Bush leaves office. The pro-Iran Shi'a government has been trying to wrestle authority from the pro-Iran Shi'a militias including Sadr's Jaish Al-Mahdi, and while sections of Sadr city have been destroyed or turned into walled ghettos, mostly the militias have backed down rather than stand and fight. Both Shi'a forces have been busy denouncing the U.S., who continues to sprinkle the country with money. The various Sunni forces have decided to milk the occupation for money and guns, establishing their own mini-states while they wait out Shia-U.S. drama. And meanwhile, the conflict in Afghanistan has been heating up and spilling over into Pakistan.

Since the U.S. and its Nato "allies" have taken over the job of fighting mujahedeen from the Soviets, it's increasingly evident what a trap Afghanistan is for imperialism and neocolonialism. Unable to root out the bases of so-called terrorists, or even to dislodge the Taleban medievalists, the mightiest war machine ever is about to find itself stuck in the same mud that helped destroy the Soviet Union.

Assuming Obama wins, and assuming he actually withdraws American forces from Iraq even as the violence restarts, Afghanistan will remain as dangerous quicksand. Since most Americans, even liberals and leftists--yours truly notwithstanding--believe somehow that the U.S. and Nato are doing something good in Afghanistan by punishing the 9/11 planners or preventing their resurgence, they will follow this colonial adventure blindly until it's too late to see it for what it is. Now Obama gains points for saying that the conflict in Afghanistan should be escalated while the one in Iraq should be ended. What's gonna happen if it turns out that Afghanistan is the real Vietnam here, not Iraq?

I think it's predictable that the mildly modernizing puppet Karzai regime will come to the same end as the succession of home-grown communist regimes that the Soviets rushed in to bolster. Surely the Taleban was odious and its policies abhorrent. (Though I still recall its first mention in the NY Tiems years back when it was presented as some band of religious students trying to end corruption and bring peace and a golden age to Afghanistan as it struggled to drive out the mujahedeen warlords between the occupations of great powers.) But surely the lessons of colonialism and imperialism and its meddling shows that the medicine is always as bad if not worse than the nativist brutality it seeks to remedy.

Let so-called terrorists be dealt with as a law-enforcement problem. Let the Afghan and Iraqi peoples determine their own destinies. And let the armies of imperialism be brought home... there's a country to be rebuilt. Yeah, that swords into plowshares bit sounds damned good.

A Little Reality Check

So after his briliant speech last night, upon his apparent win of the Democratic Party nomination, Obama today joined the parade of politicians kowtowing before the (conservative, republican) zionist confab AIPAC.

Sadly, Obama said noxious things like Jerusalem must remain "undivided" and the capital of Israel, and went out of his way to show his support of Jews by showing his support of toughness for Israel and against its victims, er, opponents.

One of the tragedies of Israel is what it has done to the America's Jews. The Jewish political establishment is no longer an institution of social justice or labor; it's a cheering section for the vile and racist zionist settler state. Just as America is turned blind to the racism, futility and organized-crime-enablement of the war on drugs, so does this knee-jerk support of Israel turn peace-loving people into the allies of monsters who use cluster bombs, apartheid/nazi style ghettos, nazi-style collective punishment, ethnic cleansing, land-stealing, and military confrontation.

I'm glad Obama says he "supports the Jews" but I am horrified that he is doing the same old dance of stupidity to the orchestra of Zionism. One should not need to prostrate oneself before the state of Israel to show one's commitment to social justice for all American ethnic groups. No matter how much Obama is forced to grovel, these war-mongering conservative Zionists will not support him anyway; they are too poisoned by their cheerleading of the up-is-down politics of Zionism. They have moved on from the civil rights movement and the black-Jewish alliance of old time social justice.

On the other hand, since I don't really believe in a two-state solution, I guess Jerusalem should remain undivided. As capital of a democratic and secular state of Palestine, open to all its Muslim, Christian and Jewish residents. One can only hope.

President-To-Be Barack Obama!

That pretty much says it. Barack Obama has received enough delegates in the flawed and corrupt democratic party system to be the party's nominee in November.

He's not perfect, and it's gonna be a hard fight against the republicans (and hopefully not any more against the Clintonites), but, God bless him, I think he's got a chance to be president. What a potential revolution in American society we are in store for.

The audacity!

Obama in 2008!

get out get out get out get out

Shockingly, Hillary Clinton did not concede tonight. It is past time for this self-serving unprincipled carpetbagger to go.

ENOUGH!

Honor for Heroes of the Past

Today, May 19th, is the birthday of two long-gone heroes.

Malcolm X, of course, was the heroic African-American muslim leader who made a long journey from being a petty street criminal to devout muslim to "black nationalist" to a leader with a complex and nuanced view of American capitalism. An amazing orator, he was gunned down in his prime by assassins rejecting his political evolution, including, allegedly, the later minister Louis Farrakhan.

Ho Chi Minh, on the other hand, did not die young. A complex figure, he lead his small nation to stand up against the mightiest powers of colonialism and imperialism in 20th-century history. Successfully resisting French, Japanese, and American domination of his country, he died before the reunification of Vietnam and the route of America's military adventure. While his adherence to Stalin-style communism considerably narrowed the focus of his country's political opposition, his humble nature and heroic leadership showed that destiny was not in the hands of European-American aggressors and their gangster-like local lackeys.

Assassination Humor

Yes, that's former serious Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking to the NRA, joking about how funny it would be if somebody tried to assassinate Barack Obama. And also, what a sissy Obama is. Wait til you hear the jokes Huckabee cracks when he visits the American bed linens and rope manufacturers associations. Hil-ar-ious.

Seriously, WTF. What is wrong with this country.

In better news, if my boyfriend and I lived in California we could get married. Yay!

Hillary Says Obama Only Supported by Lazy Ni**ers

In an interview with USA today, Hillary Clinton said:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Um, did I really read that right? Why do the following lyrics pop into my head about now....

I was working part time in a five-and-dime
My boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn't like my kind
'Cause I was a bit 2 leisurely

Seems that I was busy doing something close 2 nothing
But different than the day before

Newly released photos of weapons of mass destruction

A fascinating set of photos, found on an unknown camera, has been released after a 60-year embargo on publication. They're of the aftermath of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and unlike most published photos, show the human aftermath and not just damaged buildings. They're hard to look at, but as we contemplate Hillary Clinton's pledge to obliterate Iran they're a useful reminder that one nation--not Iran, not the old Soviet Union--has used nuclear weapons of mass destruction against civilian targets and that nation is the U.S.A.

The collection can be seen here.

The War on Children.

Literally.

Above, a fatally wounded child removed from a building demolished by a US airstrike in Baghdad. This week.

Below, the "collateral damage" (read: murder) from a US missile strike on an alleged "terrorist" in Somalia. From the BBC:

"We heard a huge explosion and when we ran out of our house we saw balls of smoke and flames coming out of house," Dusamareb resident Nur Geele told the BBC.

"The house was totally destroyed to the ground, also other houses nearby," local elder Ahmed Mumin Jama said.

Dr Ahmed Mahdi at Dusamareb Hospital told the BBC he was treating eight civilians, including women and children, for burns and shrapnel wounds.

"The house that was attacked was a small concrete villa and it has been destroyed," he said. "The adjacent houses which were made from traditional mud were also destroyed. The sight is quite horrific."

One of the women has since died, bringing the death toll so far to 11.

Yessir, proud to be an American. Due process. Right to a fair trial.

Jump, ni**er, jump!

The sad spectacle of media crucifixion of Barack Obama continues. When Obama first responded to the media/Clintonite uproar over the rev. Jeremiah Wright with his speech on racism, he took the high road. Making an emotional and intellectual appeal for clarity and realism on the subject of race, Obama's Philadelphia speech was compared by the media to JFK and MLK. For a moment.

But the manufactured Wright "controversy" did not end there. The attacks continued. Not in a way that actually debated anything said by Rev. Wright, or any position actually held by Obama, but in the way of insinuation and implication. Obama was even asked how patriotic Wright actually was.

I've heard and read some very thoughtful explorations of this subject. Usually, the more of Rev. Wright's sermonizing and speechifying they play the better and better he sounds. I agree with most everything Ive heard him say, and that which I don't agree with, I completely understand why he would say.

But then Wright came out of his period of silence, and repeated many of the things he had said before. And the media, beholden to the corrupt political establishment that has bought and purchased it over the last few years, basically forgot everything Obama had said and started repeating the same old nonsense.

Nevermind that Hillary Clinton organizes a prayer breakfast led by a right-wing cultist, or attends a church that codifies and institutionalizes bigotry against gays. Nevermind that McCain sought out the endorsement of a super-rightwing nutcase preacher who, in addition to his anti-gay hatred, organizes Christians to support Israel to help bring the apocalypse closer. Nevermind that the North Carolina governor pretty much used a mild form of the word "faggot" ("pansy") when he was endorsing Clinton and she offered no distance or protest.

But the media called Obama to eat shit and throw his former pastor under the bus. And sadly, that is what Obama did. "Jump!" they said. And he did. And now he will discover, I fear, that they just wanted to see if he would jump. They will continue to say "Jump! Ni**er! Jump!" and each time Obama will be sadly disappointed he's really not welcome at the party at all. The racism he hopes to transcend has just been mashed in his face.

I'm disappointed that Obama didn't find a way to transcend this circus of crucifixion. I don't know, of course, if it will be fatal to his campaign. I hope not. It doesn't change my support, which is as strongly qualified as it is strong. But if I was in Chicago, I know damned well I'd be trying to find where Jeremiah Wright was preaching now. I may not be a Christian but I do know who's on the side of the righteous.

God DAMN America.

Sean Bell, murder victim

The name Sean Bell can now be added to the growing and tragic list of innocent people murdered, with the full support of the law, and for no real reason, by New York City policemen. A Queens judge has just found the officers indicted in his death not guilty.

A sad sad day for justice and the people of New York.

one giant prison

So last month or so it was announced that ONE PERCENT of the American population is behind bars. Yes, one in every hundred people. Today it was announced that the absolute number of people behind bars in the US is the highest in the world. Yes, higher than the number of people in prison in China, which has a population well over one billion people.

Statistics show that over 50 percent of the people in prison are there for drug-related offenses, which is complete madness.

Hey, it's a free country!

"we will obliterate them"

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Nice way to go after Jewish votes? To prove you're tough? How about answering with truth like, "Iran doesn't actually have nuclear weapons." Or saying, "The middle-east should be nuclear-free."

It's tragic, really, how beholden to Israel politicians are. Even Barack Obama has taken some really disgusting positions on the subject. When former President Carter recently visited with Hamas leaders in exile in Syria, even Obama condemned him for meeting with "terrorists."

Will Israel be the destruction of any progressive movement in the US?

Bitter? Damn right I'm bitter.

So Barack Obama said that voters in Pennsylvania have become bitter over years of failed promises. War criminal lunatic McCain and my (hah!) senator Clinton are condemning him for being an elitist, for not saying that Pennsylvania voters are optimistic.

Well well well. Let's talk about bitter. Let's talk about elitist. Let's talk about optimism.

Laid off after giving 16 years to a single company because of a crappy economy and because american corporate culture is closer to that of medieval feudalism than 21st-century democracy? You bet I'm bitter. Reading the news and reading casualty reports of an american war, and seeing pictures of americans smashing in the doors of innocent civilians and bombing the fuck out of a country just like the vietnam war I witnessed in my childhood? you bet I'm bitter. A senator who has nothing better to do but feather her own multi-million dollar nest, support fascistic resolutions against flag burning, war against Iraq and threats against Iran, who coddles the racist swine of the zionist movement like they were tonguing her asshole? You bet I'm bitter. A president who has in eight years nearly destroyed the constitution, yes I'm bitter. A population who has been hypnotized into thinking voting for American Idol is more important than voting for President, who re-elected Bush and is actually considering voting for a senile right-wing pig like McCain? You bet I'm bitter.

A presidential candidate who sat on the board of Wal-Mart for 5 years and who, with her husband, made ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS in seven years dares to call someone ELSE elitist? You bet I'm bitter. Who has danced around flinging shit and negativity and had her surrogates toy with racism and loaded language and she has the nerve to say now that Obama doesn't understand how OPTIMISTIC the voters are? Yeah I'm fucking bitter.

A man running for PRESIDENT who doesn't even understand who is fighting who in the war he suggests continue for A HUNDRED YEARS and people are gonna vote for him and he says Obama is OUT OF TOUCH? Jesus H fucking Christ.

I don't know how Obama does it. To stay so positive, to avoid getting sucked into this swamp of disguting garbage. I admire him. Me, I want to set something on fire. Maybe I'm just gonna go back to listening to jazz. Better for my heart.

Vote for Obama. Your life depends on it. Heck MY life depends on it.

Hillary Clinton's Line of Bullshit on Iraq

Hillary Clinton is now trying to position herself as "more anti-war" than Barack Obama. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that unlike Obama, Clinton helped start the war in the first place--and that's some big thing to set aside--here's what Clinton said in December:

Hillary Clinton: Goal to remove all troops from Iraq by 2013, but no pledge
Q: In 2006, Democrats were elected to the majority in the House and Senate, and many believed that was a signal to end the war. You have said that will not pledge to have all troops out by the end of your first term, 2013. Why not?

A: It is my goal to have all troops out by the end of my first term. But it is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting. We do not know, walking into the White House in January 2009, what we're going to find. What is the state of planning for withdrawal? That's why last spring I began pressing the Pentagon to be very clear about whether or not they were planning to bring our troops out. And what I found was that they weren't doing the kind of planning that is necessary, and we've been pushing them very hard to do so. You know, though, about the Democrats taking control of the Congress, I think the Democrats have pushed extremely hard to change this president's course in Iraq. The Democrats keep voting for what we believe would be a better course.

I think it's a fair criticism of Obama to say he is waffling a little on his exact plans to end the war. Kucinich and Richardson, who both pledged to remove troops immediately, with none of this ridiculous "slow draw-down" crap, had a better position. This is a tremendous failing of the Democrats. But at worst, Obama has the same position as Clinton, who as shown above has waffled plenty. I have suggested she could easily be the LBJ of this war before, and I say it again.

Her current posture on the war is solely political. Her actions, as shown by her capitulation to Bush's war drive 6 years ago, speak louder than what she's currently saying. The war must be ended, immediately. Clinton will simply not do that. The proof of this pudding is in her vote for the Lieberman/Kyl amendment, virtually granting to Bush the power to go to war with Iran that she granted him to go to war with Iraq.

Om Mani Padme Hum?

Shangri-La is under attack! The holy spiritual people of Shangri-La are being oppressed! The Oympic torch must be stopped!

Well I must point out with all the hullaballoo about the Beijing Olympic torch and the unrest in Tibet, that in American liberal fascination with Tibet, the Dalai Lama, Buddhist spirituality, and the certainty of its self-righteousness opposition to oppression in foreign countries, not everything is what it seems.

Tibetan Buddhism surely is a wonderful spiritual path, and while I have heard that the Dalai Lama has some unfortunate views on homosexuality, as a religious person outside the mainstream of Abrahamic tradition I throw no stones at its belief system or adherents.

However, I would point out that his supporters in the west seem to be endorsing a medieval theocracy with a documented and unglorious history of slavery and feudalism. I say to these supporters of Tibet the same thing I would say to supporters of Israel: if you believe separation of church and state is a defining principle of modern democracy in the United States, you need to believe the same thing about separation of church and state in other countries, no matter how like Shangri-La you imagine them.

It may be that the Chinese are oppressive to the Tibetan people, and Tibetan autonomy and self-determination is no doubt a laudatory goal. I don't excuse the subjugation of peoples. But the smashing of a brutal and backwards feudal theocracy? Go Chinese People's Liberation Army!

To the Americans caught up in protests of the Olympics, I say, your main enemy is at home. You want to help the people of Darfur? You want to help the Tibetans? End US imperialism and international corporate rape. Dismantle the CIA. Remove American troops from Korea. Remove American troops from the middle east.

Here's an interesting perspective on Tibet.

My Second Choice for President

The Moment passed

Forty Years

Forty years ago today, one day after giving his prophetic "mountain top" speech, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a white supremacist in Memphis.

I remember as a boy of nine hearing the news on the radio. The high-school student who looked after me til my mom got home from work told me she was worried what would happen at her school the next day. That evening we walked to the corner and looked down the broad avenue we lived near in super-segregated Chicago. The black neighborhood down the way was on fire.

The world lost a great great man that day. May his spirit shine forever.

Embrace of the War Criminals

Americans seem to have a dangerous weakness for doddering old fools.

It needs to be said, Senator John McCain is not some kind of liberal republican maverick. He is a dangerous right-wing scumbag. John McCain was bombing civilian and military targets in North Vietnam during the American war of aggression against Vietnam. When he was shot down, he was rightfully and justly imprisoned. Neck deep in the blood of murdered innocent Vietnamese--who he proudly called "Gooks" until just a few years ago--John McCain is not some war hero but a war ciminal.

McCain's recent and repeated comment about Al Qaeda returning to Iran to rearm and retrain is not an excusable confusion, it is either senile dementia, stupidity, or more of the same duplicitous manipulation of American ignorance about the world that we've had from 8 years of the corrupt Bush regime.

Over and over again John McCain has shown a willingness to embrace the worst of nascent American fascism, the so-called "conservative" movement. LIkely to die in office before his term is up, he is clearly also a kind of trojan horse for dengerous right-wing forces. Look to his vice presidential candidate to see who, in fact, the Blackwater/Oil company corporate axis truly seeks to entrust with the reins of corrupt corporate state power.

Beware.

President Bush Arrested, to Stand Trial

President Bush was jailed today after a citizens' delegation arrested him for war crimes, sedition, and crimes against the humanity. Several other members of his former administration were also jailed. Vice President Cheney is not, howeer, expected to recover from the stroke he suffered shortly after being taken into the people's custody.

A congessional delegation has travelled to the United Nations, where a representative is to tomorrow deliver a statement entitled "we apologize to the world."

In other news, shares in the Trans-middle-east Plowshares Corporation increased in value today after a donation of American weapons of mass destruction to the Jerusalem-based scrap metal corporation.

sadder landmark

dead Iraqis: previous post x 20? x30? x40? x50? who knows?

sad landmark

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A Guide To Campaign English

The following translations may be helpful to observers of the 2008 elections:

"Obama is inexperienced" = Obama is a negro and therefore can't be trusted (funny, no one ever called John Edwards inexperienced. why is that??)
"Obama is arrogant" = Obama is an uppity ni**er

Presidential Candidate Embarassed by Association to Bigoted Institution

"I have always had a deep personal faith that was rooted in the Methodist church in large measure because I was christened into it, I grew up in it. But, it also very much reflected how I thought about faith as I matured. You know, if you look at the Methodist book of discipline it talks about the four contributing streams of faith -- scripture, tradition, experience and reason. I always resonated to the fact that it was both revelatory and scripture-based but that you were invited to use your power of reason to think through your faith and to work through what it meant to you and how you would live it in your daily life."
--Hillary Clinton

"While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.....The General Council on Finance and Administration of The United Methodist Church] shall be responsible for ensuring that no board, agency, committee, commission, or council shall give United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality. The council shall have the right to stop such expenditures. "
--From the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church.

And now some fresh air:
“I refuse to limit my God, to lock God into my cultural understandings because culture is fickle,” Wright said. “And culture is often wrong. Culture was wrong about slavery. Culture was wrong about women. Culture was wrong about Africans and Indians, and culture was wrong about Christ,” he said. “I have been the pariah among many of my clergy colleagues who somehow see me as defective or not quite saved because I won’t join them in their homophobic gay bashing and misquoting of scripture.” (Rev. Jeremiah Wright)

Link removed

Well it saddens me a little but I've removed the link on my blogroll to Joe.My.God. I've enjoyed reading the blog for a while now, but I think it has crossed the line recently and I can't really endorse it even for entertainment.

It's proved recently that racism is indeed rampant in the gay male community, a sad fact I guess I had forgotten. Sorry Joe. I can suffer through the shilling for Hillary but not the racism.

You Have To Want It To Be Different

Barack Obama delivered an important speech today on race in America and the racial issues surrounding his campaign.

There's a couple things in his speech I disagree with, but I have to say I am truly impressed with it. In the face of all the Hillary Clinton supporters flinging mud and negativity at his campaign, Obama consistently makes the same point over and over again: if you want change to come, you have to find common ground to stand with all people and make the effort to make things different.

Having watched a few of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's speeches floating around on the internets (and one can guess which campaign is helping to distribute these) I'm struck by how wide the gulf is between those who share Rev. Wright's point of view--and frankly I find far more to agree with in his fiery sermons than to disagree with--and those who are offended by them. I think Obama has struck an important balance in his approach to this controversy.

As a person with strong beliefs far to the left of the general point of view, I'm willing to set my disbelief and distrust aside and say I will vote for this man, with hope, and optimism. I call on those with opinions far to the right of me, or of Barack Obama even, to meet me in that middle ground.

I don't agree with Obama's statement herein on Israel; but you know what? Somebody with my beliefs on the middle east isn't going to be elected president of the united states.

It is so time for change, and Barack Obama is perhaps the only person who can deliver us from the dire precipice we find ourselves on.

Vietnam-War Avoider Has Career Regret

From a George Bush videoconference with military leaders in Afghanistan:

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

If only he had stayed home reading Rudyard Kipling instead of being responsible for the murder of thousands.

wow.

Keith Obermann really calls out Hillary Clinton over Geraldine Ferraro. Impressive.

of seminaries, yeshivas, and madrassas

So just to get it out of the way, a massacre of students in a school is a pretty awful thing, even if that school was a training ground for the racist ultra-zionist Israeli settler movement. It's despressing to think that the soul-deadening mathematical response is necessary, but I point out that Israel just killed a hundred people in Gaza, certainly no less an awful thing, the disgusting display of official Israeli "regret" at civilian casualty notwithstanding. (I always learned that regretting something meant you intended not to do it again. The Israeli "regret" is complete and utter racist bullshit.)

All of that said I find it fascinating that the attack on the school was immediately reported as an attack on a seminary. One could argue that seminary is a fair translation for yeshiva. But then isn't it a fair translation for madrassa as well?

A seminary is full of earnest young spiritual seekers, learning the details of faith so that they might commit their lives to prayer and betterment of mankind. A yeshiva is a walled-off temple of mystery, where weirdly-dressed quaint, if somewhat distasteful strangers go to engage in weird mumbling, seeking ancient knowledge to preserve their alien presence in the world of normal people. A madrassa is a nest of terrorist vipers, where they keep their machine guns and scimitars (the ones for cutting off human heads), where crazed and delusional fanatics rouse themselves into an anti-human frenzy before going off and murdering innocents.

The problem here is that seminaries, yeshivas, and madrassas are all the same thing, just as all blood is red. It's really the problem, isn't it, with discussions of the middle east, that the mathematics of this tragedy and its translation are in the hands of manipulators, liars, and killers, and the ones who love them.

dearth of posts

Sorry so little posting of late. Been spending more time on my other blog, which keeps me pretty happy. Anyway, check it out.

Lessee: good news, Obama leads in delegate counts. Bad news, Clinton is still in the race. It's pretty discouraging to see her machine in action. I just don't understand how people fall for it. Bad news, war in Iraq still on. Good news, kittens are still cute.

(rant on islamophobia)

I love blogs. Everybody's got one. I know the person who read mine the most is me!

So I'm saving my latest rant from the comments of Joe.My.God. cause it took me a while to write and for once I feel reasonably articulate.

Apologies if--for shock--anybody has actually followed a link from JMG expecting to read something new here. Gasp!

---

(the subject was an anglican predicting sharia in england)

OK. I'll be the one.

I am so fucking sick of this islamo-phobia. I enjoy JMG, but if you get your knowledge of islam or world-events from this ZOMG!!1! React-to-this-immediately medium, you're doing yourself a disservice.

I live in Brooklyn, in a very mixed but mostly latin neighborhood. About ten blocks away is a super-super orthodox jewish neighborhood. The men wear slippers, long beards, weird hats, long coats. The women wear the jewish equivalent of the burka: wigs, long skirts. The kids are well-behaved. The shops close early on Friday and stay closed on Saturday. There are strings high up on poles around the blocks to mark off the eruv. There are jewish schools and jewish doctors and jewish everything else....and jewish social custom ruling the way the entire community acts. And you know what? These people are happy. They're not hurting anybody. They're not threatening anybody.

Now their beliefs are not my beliefs. You can argue that an ultra-orthodox man who wakes up and realizes he's gay faces awkward choices of removing himself from his community or enduring the closet or disapproval. And eventually I believe enough ultra-orthodox gay jews will get around to building a community where no one is forced to make that choice. But the problem is NOT that jews want to live in a world of cultural comfort. There are ultra-orthodox jews who would like to dictate NY city law, like Noach Dear and his opposition to gay marriage, and that's wrong. But screwing things up for the rest of us is NOT what MOST jews in this very self-contained community spend their time doing.

This is all that's fucking happening in England with the muslims except it's new. Nobody's talking about cutting the hands off thieves in muslim Liverpool, or stoning pakistani gay boys to death in London. Joe, give me a break. You're really baiting controversy here.

You wanna go out and learn something about islam, do so (I recommend a book by a guy named Reza Aslan I'm pretty sure is a gay muslim called "No god but God".) It's not my religion. I understand many of you don't like any religion, and I can't argue with that. Although I do have a religion, I understand religion has mostly treated us like trash. I'm not apologizing for that.

But this hysteria is just ridiculous. Islam is just the new "other" in the next neighborhood over. Let's welcome them and convince them some of western secularism is good, without threatening their religion.

And let's stop this stupid fucking ignorant racist ridiculousness. The world is changing. Help make it better.

Yes we can!

On Super Duper Tuesday February 5, vote for Barack Obama.

Awesome Erykah Badu video

so cool. classic record covers come to life. Thanks to 4 brothers beats blog for turning me on to this.

Obama Routs Hillary in SC

Barack Obama got 55% of the vote in the democratic party primary in South Carolina. That's pretty damn impressive.

Things are likely to get uglier though. Check out this headline on Time.com

"Obama's Rout Rejiggers The Race"

Rejiggers? Are they kidding...has anyone ever seen this word in a headline before? I understand that it's not actually an offensive word but doesn't it sounds like they might as well say "Ni**er Wins" or "Ji**aboo Takes SC". The depth of American racism is gonna reveal itself in a huge way.

Check out this shocking headline from the Hamptons Independent reported on Gawker: "Why I Should Be Your Next President, by Yo Mama bin Barack." This from the enlightened liberal northeast's resort community on Long Island.

On to Super-Duper Tueday.

Share the Joy

So I have become completely fascinated by music blogs. There are a bunch of music-sharing download blogs out there. Some of them are all about people ripping off the system, and it's actually shocking what you can avoid paying for if you look hard enough. I understand now why the record industry is in trouble: it's clear a new money-making paradigm is needed.

I don't approve of downloading just to get something for free. Musicians deserve to be paid for their labor, just like the rest of us, and unfortunately for them they have to share their income with big record companies.

But there are a lot of music blogs that I think are actually doing the artists a bit of a favor, and these are the ones who rip long-out-of-print vinyl that's not currently available on CD reissue and share it with other music heads. There's a big community of "other music" fans out there after '70s jazz and rare groove, lost psychedelic folk, prog rock from all over the world, you name it. I know I spend a fortune on CD reissues, and hopefully some of those profits go off to the artists. But meanwhile, rather than paying exhorbitant amounts for scratchy used vinyl, there's this whole group of people that's all about sharing sounds and rescuing them from obscurity. Hopefully in so doing they're creating a demand that might generate legit CD reissues for deserving artists from back in the day.

Here's some cool links. As near as I can tell, none of these sites link to downloads that cheat anybody.

* My Jazz World
Great lost jazz sides wth an emphasis on the seventies. The blogger has a taste for organ-based soul jazz and smooth-fusion which I don't share, but he also has some awesome rare groove nuggets up for share.

* Loronix
The most amazing collection of Brazilian albums from bossa to MPB to prog to pop, from the 1950s to the 1980s.

* Abracadabra
More incredible lost Brazilian music.

* Hippy Djkit
Lost psychedelic folk and prog folk and rock with a counterculture sensibility.

* Orgy In Rhythm
Obscure rare groove jazz site.

* Disco Delivery
Amazing disco site. This guy really researches and analyzes the music he shares. A real labor of love.

* Ile Oxumare
Promising new jazz site.

Enjoy!

Barack Obama For President

New York's primary in the 2008 presidential election cycle is part of "Super Duper Tuesday" on February 5. After much consideration, I have finally decided to cast my vote for Barack Obama on the Democratic Party ticket, and I urge readers to do the same.

It must be said right off that the Democratic Party is twin partner to the Republican Party, and as long as Americans are shackled to the good-cop-bad-cop routine with which these two corrupt bastions of American imperialism have enforced the will of the mlitary-industrial complex for the greater part of this country's history, we will be repeating an endless cycle of tragedy and disappointment, leading, eventually, to some disastrous collapse of self-avowed democracy to dictatorial despotism. However, someone will win the 2008 elections, and, however sad the fact might be, that person will not be cast up from the ranks of the righteous. That person will not even be a radical reformist in the mold of congressman Dennis Kucinich, nor a third-party critic like former Democrat Cynthia McKinney. That person will be a Democrat or Republican, and I believe that we are all better off--especially given the future composition of the Supreme Court--that that person be a Democrat. In a field of Democrats I believe the best choice is Senator Obama.

Barack Obama is not perfect. As for the global dominance of American capitalism and imperialism, from foreign interventionism including unquestioned bolstering of the State of Israel, to the ridiculous privatization of health and government services, to the tragic repressive waste that is so-called war on drugs, Obama's allegiance to the status quo is writ plainly and clearly. I do not argue that he is a revolutionary, nor even on the order of social heroes of the past who likewise shared a commitment to American capitalism despite their heroic challenges to the worst of American excess like the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

Sadly many of the reasons to vote for Obama are negatives. The biggest of these is to deter NY Senator and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. At this writing Clinton and Obama are engaged in a somewhat bizarre LBJ vs MLK role-playing exercise. If Obama is no MLK, Clinton is unfortunately all too LBJ-like, and that should concern anyone whose priority is the swift removal of US troops from Iraq. The ugly race-baiting spectacle, complete with rambling threats by the former president Clinton himself and somewhat bizarre faux-folksy calls for solidarity with the Clintons from millionaire founder of BET Bob Johnson, reminds me, for one, of the worst of the Clinton years. Having suffered through America's self-inflicted Bushite nightmare I worry we have remembered only the good parts of Clinton's era and not the bad.

Speaking of millionaires, born-again populist, former senator and former vice presidential candidate John Edwards also represents an acceptable alternative to four more years of the Clintons or Republicans, but currently it seems unlikely that his trajectory is anything other than downward.

As everybody knows Barack Hussein Obama is the child of a white American woman and black man from Kenya. His upbringing was anything but typical (for non-Hawaiians or non-Indonesians that is): growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He is a lawyer, and a veteran of something he calls community organizing in Chicago. While not in national office at the time, he vocally opposed the US attack on Iraq from the beginning. He can be an inspiring speaker. His calls for change and hope do seem genuine and refreshing, and while I'm not particularly interested in building bridges with Republicans, his promise to unify and heal the sectarianism of the recent past feels like something more than just another election-year political bromide.

Obama does not support gay marriage, and handled the appearance by gospel singer and arguably anti-gay preacher Donnie McClurkin at a campaign event clumsily. But at his appearance at that ground-breaking candidates forum sponsored by Logo months back, I felt what he did say in support of gay civil rights was heartfelt and less equivocal than Clinton.

Obama seems to genuinely oppose the war in Iraq, and seems to raise questions about the whole idea of the "war on terror." But he clearly does not oppose American intervention abroad. His critique of the war is not as solid as that of say, Kucinich, or even perhaps the now-dropped out of the race Eeyore candidate Governor Bill Richardson. But his opposition to the war seems much clearer than that of Senator Clinton, who I believe would prolong and deepen it, much like LBJ did back in the 1960s.

It's widely reported that African-Americans are concerned that Barack Obama is setting himself up for assassination. It's hard to argue with that. The deep deep racism of many white Americans would seem to virtually guarantee that Obama would become a target of violence at some point. One can only pray--and I guess I mean that literally!--that such a fear doesn't come to pass. But it's because of that racism that I think Obama offers the most hope for me.

Harold Washington was Chicago's first--and only, so far--African-American mayor. Chicago was and is segregated in ugly ugly ways. But Washington's tenure, cut short by a heart attack, changed Chicago, and changed Chicagoans, for the better, in ways both subtle and dramatic. While Condoleeza Rice proves there's nothing inherently better about having black faces in government, I believe that Obama offers us the kind of opportunity for fundamental change in attitude, a fundamental blow against racism, that Harold Washington wound up being in Chicago. Jesse Jackson was a flawed candidate, though I worked on his presidential campaign back in the 1980s; my first political steps outside the tiny world of sectarian socialism. Jackson proved to be too complex a figure, too unable to transcend his personal baggage. Al Sharpton was a flawed candidate, and despite the knee-jerk racist reaction he is met with by most white Americans, he made many principled and admirable stands; but his campaign never transcended that of an outsider, like today's Kucinich or Gravel. Racism didn't end with Harold Washington, and it won't end with Obama. Indeed the backlash will likely be ugly. But the hour is late, and every we step we take as a nation so dyed in the wool of racism out of this ugly caldron is a step toward our redemption.

It is unnecessary, I think, to engage in the fruitless argument over whether women or African-Americans have suffered more or are more deserving of fronting our attack against the Republican monstrosity. Let us look to the individuals offering to lead the charge and this time, the man of mixed racial heritage is my choice.

For the Republican machine must be defeated. Huckabee, a likable opponent of scientific reality, a gregarious foe of gays and non-Christians, as ignorant about foreign affairs as he is committed to his religious faith, offers the logical extension of Bush's evangelical champions and must be defeated. Giuliani, a dislikable bully and opportunist, is a would-be dictator, a fear-monger, and deeply, deeply corrupt, must be defeated. Romney, a slimy, corrupt and disengenuous opportunist, must be defeated. McCain, a doddering militarist, a veteran war criminal, and lapdog of the Republican establishment, must be defeated.

For all these reasons, you can hold your nose, you can cross your fingers, you can apply for an immigration visa to the country of your choice, you can stockpile arms in preparation for civil war, you can redouble your commitment to revolution or to spiritual purity, but the only choice for now, for this dismal reality, is to vote for Barack Obama for president. May God have mercy.

Joel Dorn, 1942-2007

I was browsing through my CD collection yesterday and realized how lax I had been in not noting the passing of one of the greats of American jazz, So here is belated notice of the passing of renowed, possibly under-renowned, 1960s/1970s record producer Joel Dorn, who left this world in December. Joel Dorn was the consummate A&R guy, working with the giants of R&B and jazz at a key point in American music.

He worked at Atlantic Records when it was still a pioneering indie label, and went on to be a champion of independent label jazz in the CD era. In later days he owned now-defunct 32 Jazz--and later Label M--which if you're into rare groove jazz/funk like I am, you will recognize as an incredibly generous and important CD reissue label of the Muse and Atlantic jazz catalogs in the 1990s. Among his sons is Mocean Worker, a groove/jazz DJ who thankfully carries on Dorn's excellent tastes.

They don't make 'em like that any more.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday

Courtesy of my friend Andrew, here's greeting for the late Dr. King, whose birthday would have been today. Still hard to believe his birthday became one of our monday holidays... thank you Stevie Wonder.

Barack Takes Iowa, Hillary Takes a Kick in the Pants(suit)

Senator Barack Obama is not perfect. More to come on that later. But wow, delivering a swift kick in the backside to Senator Hillary "Yes to Bush" Clinton (who came in third!), he has won the primary caucuses in Iowa. I think that's cause for celebration. The audacity of hope, indeed.

Below is a link to Obama's victory speech, which is inspiring. Read it here.

Happy New Year?

Mojuba Olorun
Mojuba Olodumare
Mojuba Olofi
Mojuba gbogbo egungun
Mojuba my ancestors
Mojuba Dorothy Scott Horst Holden ibaye
Mojuba George Horst ibaye
Mojuba Olivia Ashcroft Fitzgerald ibaye
Mojuba Thomas Fitzgerald ibaye
Mojuba Quentin Fitzgerald ibaye
Mojuba Conrad Horst ibaye
Mojuba Lisbeth Horst ibaye
Mojuba Bertha Menzies ibaye
Mojuba gbogbo Horsts, Fitzgeralds, O'Neills, Ashcrofts, Scotts, Menzies, and others
Mojuba to those who have passed on this past year
--Mojuba Elsa Izquierdo Ade Doyin ibaye baye tonu
--Mojuba Swami Turiya Sangitananda Alice Coltrane ibaye baye tonu
Mojuba to the spirits of the old world and the new
Mojuba to the Indian spirits
Mojuba to the African spirits
Mojuba to the European spirits
Mojuba to the American spirits
Mojuba to the spirits of light and guidance
Mojuba to the animal world
Mojuba to the animals we eat
Mojuba to the animals we care for
Mojuba to the animals who care for us
Mojuba to my pets Henry and Jimmy
Mojuba Asheda
Mojuba Akoda
Mojuba gbogbo elders who have passed on to Ile Olorun
Mojuba Iyami
Mojuba Babami
Mojuba Baba Tobi Asinyabi Olo Yemaya
Mojuba Ayubona Okan Ara Bi Olo Obatala
Mojuba gbogbo Iworo
Mojuba my godbrothers and sisters
Mojuba my godchildren
Mojuba my partner Jesse
Mojuba my friends and relatives
Mojuba the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars
Mojuba the earth, the air, the fire and the water
Mojuba science and music and art and medicine
Mojuba ori mi
Mojuba ade mi
Mojuba gbogbo Orisha
Mojuba Elegba
Mojuba Ogun
Mojuba Ochosi
Mojuba Osun
Mojuba Ifa
Mojuba Babalu Aiye
Mojuba Ibeji
Mojuba Olokun
Mojuba Oge
Mojuba Shango, kawo kabiosile
Mojuba Oya, hekua hey Iansa
Mojuba Yemaya, iya mi ile
Mojuba Oshun Ibu Kole, ye ye o
Mojuba Oke
Mojuba Obatala Yeku Yeku, Hekua Baba
Ago lona
Bring health and balance and wisdom to me and all those I love
Bring love and happiness and abundance to me and all those I love
Bring peace to the world and keep us safe from war
Kosi iku kosi arun kosi eyo kosi ofo kosi araye
May the new year be filled with peace and light and love
May the evil works of evil men be no more
May justice triumph
May the new year be filled with music
May the new year be filled with joy
May I find better employment and purpose
May I find good health
Thanks to God above and below
Ashe Ashe Ashe

Happy new year 2008

George Bush, J'Accuse

Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, was assassinated today. A complex figure, she was a populist hero in a culture where most heroes are men. She was an aristocrat, a child of Pakistan's history, and a leader of debatable integrity. But she was undeniably courageous, and, seizing control of the wheels of history, she returned to her country from exile at a key moment to provoke George Bush's pet dictator Musharraf in a time of vulnerability.

While she was hardly an anti-imperialist, it's increasingly clear that Pakistan's dictatorship--fully supported by the Bush regime--is among the puppet masters of so-called Islamic terrorism in the region. The complicated conflict in Afghanistan is perpetuated by the Pakistani military, and nurtured by the corruption of Bush.

Thus while Bhutto and Bush toyed with alliance, her triumphant return to Pakistan and its cinematic welcome parade (which also ended in violent tragedy) pushed her to a position of confrontation with Musharraf and Bush. Her death now at the hands of unknown assassins must be laid at the feet of Musharraf and Bush and their cold alliance of power and brutality.

The world has lost a great woman. J'accuse George Bush: you did this.

The Tragedy of Victor Jara

This song always makes me weepy, and I just discovered this haunting video on youtube. Victor Jara was a revolutionary Chilean singer who was murdered after the Pinochet coup of 1973. He was actually the biggest Chilean pop star, and his murder at the hands of the US/CIA-backed junta should have shocked the world. This song, "Vamos por ancho camino" (We're going by the wide road) is a poetic metaphor for the Chilean socialists' doomed strategy of popular front; uniting all the segments of society behind their broad banner, and tragically opening the door for the coup and the right-wing resurgance which lasted decades. The song, with its Andean flutes and percussion, recorded long before they became cliched, evokes hopeful innocence, belied by its future soon to be drowned in blood.

May Victor Jara always be remembered.

Oscar Peterson

Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has died at the age of 82. He was immensely prolific, with an instantly recognizable virtuosic style. My own favorite Oscar Peterson recording is his version of Tom Jobim's "Wave" with a swinging string arrangement by Claus Ogerman, from Peterson's heyday in the late 1960s. It's on Motions and Emotions one of his albums for the legendary German MPS label. He will be missed!

A Christmas Gift...

...from my draq queen pal Candy. And yours truly is along for the party! May one of those presents be for me!

Did Gay Rights lose in Venezuela, too?

I heard a snippet on the BBC this morning and have been trying to find info on it. One of the constitutional amendments in the packet of changes defeated in this weekend's referendum was apparently an amendment adding "sexual orientation" to the list of anti-discrimination protections in Venezuela's fairly new constitution. While I had mixed feelings about Chavez's proposal to eliminate term limits, I think he's a real progressive. In the barrage of anti-Chavez propaganda dominating even "liberal" US media, it's discouraging but not surprising to see this element un-discussed. Because in truth, progressive socialism would be good for Venezuela just like it would be good for the U.S.

Chavez is not the enemy of freedom, the U.S. and its CIA are. I'm glad to see Chavez is on the side of equal rights for us gays.