Ghost of the Machine, part 1: Anima and Ideological Illness

One of the great things about being an academic is, simply, I get paid to read Derrida. This summer, I have been enjoying, simulataneously, Paper Machine, his meditations on books, archiving, and "the mechanicity in language, the media, and intellectuals" (check out "The Word Processor" if you are feeling self reflexive), and a wonderful article Geoffrey Bennington wrote called "Derrida and Politics", that wonders why Derrida never made any specific political pronouncements: He's Derrida, he doesn't make specifice pronouncements, he asks hyper specific questions. You figure it out.

Another great thing about being an academic is having Derrida pinging around your head like a spaceball ricochet while absorbing more cable news than a human being should. If you didn't catch Ann Coulter's surly drunk routine (complete with black sunglasses) on Hardball last night, then you missed "Ms." Coulter's most incoherent ideological nonsense to date. What's worse, her "fans" ate it up, as though being an ill informed boor is the mark of some intellectual and moral genius. Chris Matthews, predictably, made her look like an asshole.

Speaking of ideologues and assholes, watching the equivocating of Cheney about his shadow government, scourged by the light of day in the great Barton Gellman and Jo Becker expose (essential reading, if you haven't already) has been fun, troubling (well, not really, we all knew anyway), and fascinating through the Derridian lens.

Dick Cheney is an interesting character who, based on his own statements, is not a character at all, but a ghost in the machine, being both legislator, and executive, and yet, neither.

The machine, of course, is the our government, or rather, the manner in which we speak and write about our government as the mechaniations which seem to work contrary to the welfare of the people. This, distilled, is the complaint of both conservatives and liberals. The solutions to this complaint, of course, vary.

It is in this complaints, or rather, these complaints, for though the complaint is the same, the perceived solutions are different, thus the valence of the complaint itself is different, the trace of of the complainer's ideology becomes apparent, either in the qualification of the solution, or in the qualification of the complaint itself, the underlying ideology is laid bare.

Bare ideology is, of course, the meat and potatoes of a professional pundit and hustler like Ann Coulter to the extent that one could upon her as a kind of W.A.S.P golem, a body that was animated by solemn, arcane, recitations from Fukuyama's "The End of History", with a copies of the the Federalist Papers strapped to the head and arms, phylactery style, that perfectly, with all the subtlety of Frankenstein's monster, defends the corporatist, patriarchal, ideology of her maker. A golem is the ultimate agent of victory at all costs.

Humorous as this account might seem, if we apply further tension to this idea of a golem, removing the pseudo cosmis negligence embedded in both its folklore roots and its absurd recasting here, what are you left with, in essence, is a host, the "raw material" for the kind of parasitic ideology that birthed the NeoConservative Movement, while, at the same time, infecting the body politic to the point that the Goldwater Conservatives, and their rational, if flawed, reading of the Constitution, are all but extinct on the national level.

What is left are hosts to this ideological illness, some infected through a fear of Communism, some infected through a fear of terrorism, some infected through a fear of homosexuals/immigrants/ ad infinitum, but in every case, fear feeds the parasitic ideology, and though the phenomenological experience of the host could, and should, kill the parasite, its epistemological justification of its continued existence is the continued existence of uncertainty, and of fear, and, as long as the ideology is fed, its powers of denial, both of the phenomenological and the rational when they contradict the doctrine, or contextualize the uncertainty, are all encompessing, reducing the host to a golem, or perhaps, more aptly, an automaton, a mechanized object that's sole purpose is perpetuation of the ideology, and the infestation of others by praying on the most primal: the fear of the dark, if you like.

Part II: Infections of the Machine.

Organized Labor

The forces of evil on at it again, screwing the working man at every turn.

Orrin Hatch explains the GOP position as "stand[ing] up for American workers by defeating this bill." He then tells us why we should listen to him:

" I was a card-carrying member of the AFL-CIO Metal Lather union in my youth, and I understand the role that unions can play. But unionization is increasingly facing organizing challenges.

Unions have seen a steady decline in membership, from 16.1 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2006. Right now they’re less interested in seriously defending workers’ rights than they are about simply holding onto their power. It seems obvious that big labor wants to rebuild its membership rolls — and its bank account — through a forced unionization process called 'card check'.”

Orrin Hatch, that old union dog that he is, has an 7% Pro Labor rating according to AFL-CIO, so you know he's extremely interested in the rights of workers.

Here's the evil that he helped saved us from.

Ken...By Request

Via Mike at the Naked Vine

The Worst Album Covers...ever.

I hadn't seen this before... it kind of sucks, though, because I always dreamed that, one day, I would call my first album "The Ethel Merman Disco Album"...

Renege of the Sith

"Luke...I am not your father".

Bildungsroman, Progressive Rock and the The Return of Mallory

Here's an admission of bias, the full disclosure:

1. I do not follow most local music, because I find a lot of it too hip, too self satisfied with its own ironic pose, plus I tend to gravitate to dumb rock and roll for a night out, or utter schmaltz, neither of which is in great supply these days, so I really don't go out and check out bands much.
2. Their album the first one hundred years, when taken in conjunction with Camel Lights, Espresso and Adderall, makes paper writing on a graduate level the intellectual stretch it should be, giving one all the bravery they need to go out on a limb and compare De Quincy's "Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Burrough's Junky as a kind of Camusian story of discovery, the birth of the writer into existence by the act of writing (a success) or querying which is the true sign of A Clockwork Orange? The American Version? The British Version with the extra chapter? Kubrick's rendering (not a success). Or passing the MLA Comps (take God)-the album can help make it happen. There's a blob of espesso on the CD, for crissakes. How long's that been there?
3. Okay...and the guitarist used to sleep on my floor, and I've known the drummer and singer for over ten years.
4. Okay okay...we went to the same High School.

Having said all of that, it is important to note that this Mallory's first opus came out around 2002. We haven't heard from them in quite a while-over two years, by my recollection, since they have rocked out live, for paying enthusiasts.

But Mallory, Matt Arnold, Dan Heier and Jim Cunningham evidentally haven't been cooking up Chinese Democracy or some other self indulgent rock "masterpiece", but instead woodshedding, pondering, inventing- being musicians, in other words.

Self indulgent as an insult may sound like rocks and glass houses with a band that is not only willing to stretch out some, but sounds a bit "prog-y" while they do it, but this is not the case: They won't be "the roundabout".

Instead, what they are is, in effect, a deconstruction of the word progressive, at least in a musical sense: Progressive means forward, and the early progressive bands were Barrett era Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, and The Mothers of Invention-freak rock, if you like.

As the sixties became the seventies, this definition changed, with only Pink Floyd remaining in the definition of Progressive Rock. Noisy and experimental were out. Slick and musicianly were in. Rick Wakeman...RICK FUCKING WAKEMAN...shit salad surgar-y. Nothing weird, just complicated. Nothing too uncomfortable, almost soothing, like valium and red wine, you get kind of lulled into a mellow out complacency... give up grass for tranquilizers and anti-depressents...Soon, you start digging Vangelis, listening to Yanni in the car...burning sage around the house...pan flutes...the horror...

The important thing to remember is that, in this case, Progressive is not Rick Wakeman (Wake Rick, man...). Progressive is The Velvet Underground; noisy poetic dark and uncomfortable. Progressive is The Mothers; the smartest guy in the room calling you an asshole. Progressive is Syd era Floyd; expansive, dense yet spacious, imagistic, druggy. This is the tradition begat the best and most influential bands of rock: The Stooges, Bowie, Roxy Music, Sonic Youth, The Pixies, Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine, nearly everything that can be called Punk or Post Punk, all the early Industrial, from Caberet Voltaire to Psychic TV-experimental, dangerous, music, life affirming, scary art. The other so called progressive music, with its madrigals and masturbatory moog symphonies...Wake Rick, man!

Mallory come from the former tradition. They have no bass player. Dan and Jim work in clouds of sound, which seep and groan out of their instruments, vacillating between monochrome to Kodachrome-shrill to heavy to lighter than air, all in the gravitational pull of Matt Arnold's intuitive expressive percussion, Bonham bombast to brush soft. All three can be found at various times adding a little funereal keyboard, another hue in the enveloping fog.

(Everything orbits everything, or everything orbits the drums, like the Milky Way, though that's not strictly true in every case.)

Mallory is a band that knows the importance of the tradition that begat them, and one can find traces of those bands and artists, yet Mallory recasts these through their own experiences, the secret to working in any artform and not sounding, or looking, like a pastiche. That was always the problem with Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes and their ilk: They always looked backwards instead of looking ahead: Their progression was a regression, Rock that is classical but not classic. It's hardly innovative to look to Brahms for inspiration.

Mallory doesn't sound like My Bloody Valentine, for example, but somebody in the band listened-and listened well.

One of the tracks on their first disc was called Bildungsroman, which is one of many taxonomies of biography: The journey of self-discovery, like Rousseau, St. Augustine, etc. One of the ideas I hold near and dear is that, for the artist, every act of creation and capture is the contemporaneous bildungsroman, because every act of creation and capture, be it on canvas, on film, on tape or in the human senses, reflects something a grander tradition while at the same time being a biographical (or autographical) unit reacting to and commenting on what creation came before it- expectation and memory informing this moment, possibly obscuring, the new knowledge, the new chapter. The question is: What came of these "years in the wilderness"? Has Mallory progressed into something even more formidable and special? I have it on good authority that everyone will be mightily impressed. How does this bildungsroman now read?

Friday Night, we find out.

Update: If you want a set list, fuck off.

Unusual for it to be so cool this time of year, and yet, it still managed to be humid for Mallory's first show in ten thousand years, and there were alot of people, with a lot of expectations, for the return of the only original band in Cincinnati.

The pre concert ritual is the same as it has been for generations of rock fans: Meet in bar before the show. Drink beer. Drink beer DRINK BEER. Go to show. There is something comfortable in this ritual, especially around here, because you never know what variety of people you will run into at a local rock show. If they are friends, then, in all likelihood, they will have been doing the same, and it will be a wonderful family reunion. This was the case Friday, as my entire young adult life converged, mightily drunk, to see this show. Mallory, with its ur in greater and lesser Lawrenceburg, Indiana, area, brought every single freak from my hometown out. It was a big happy family reunion, with comedians Brad Thacker, local artist Gene I. Kerley (responsible for the great advertisement), impresario and activist Jon Sheperd, The Deacon of this board, many doobie cruise buddies from back in the day, Mike from the Naked Vine...

The other reason to drink beer before the show was evidenced in a smaller quantities than I expected: Hipsters, people with severe bangs, and thirtysomethings clinging to whatever alternative meant, if it ever meant anything. With these folks in smaller quantities, we were all served up little or self conscious irony, snark, back biting, or any of the other shit that tends to haunt local shows, and has for years. It used to be the "Punker than Thou" Olympics, though now it has morphed into "Hipper than You" Olympics. In either case, this bullshit was at a minimum, thank God, because it allowed for the dark rapture of the music.

In the bildungsroman we call Mallory, the last one thousand years has been fruitful. The first thing that struck me was the sound: Matt Arnold's drums sounded huge, epic, forboding, filling the ballroom of the Southgate with the kind of sledgehammer low end skips your heart a couple of beats. The guitars sounded, well, full, with the space between the parts that Jim Cunningham plays (usuallly the chord-y stuff) and Dan Heier plays(usually melodic and/or noisy stuff) melding into the most gigantic, fucked up chord ever played, a feat I have not witnessed since Fugazi's last trip to Bogart's. Whereas Mallory had been a great rock band before, these years have turned them into a machine: The War of Worlds raising space rock, art rock, psychedelic daydreams and the nightmare of lonely poets from the grave of progressive rock...Wake Rick, man...tell him he sucks and always has...an annihilating derivative, safe, posing, self styled irony rock in its wake. The bands that bookended the show didn't stand a fucking chance. Did I mention that, somehow, Jim Cunningham stole Bill Wyman's bass, and thus, bass guitar showed up for the first time in a Mallory tune?

The lamps were back, glowing red balls of light, but Mallory, this time, brought film. I heard several in the audience quip "Is this a power point presentation. ha ha ha", only to be silenced when, swallowed by the blackhole of the Mallory sound, they also had to deal with a montage of public domain film clips which may, or maynot, elucidated the theme of the song. Or they may have provided counterpoint. Or they may have been a kind of visual tone poem for the song. Either way, the clips chosen were cleverly chosen, stunning to behold, and poignant in a way that sort of transcends description.

Mallory 2007 are pretentious.

Pretentiousness is a word that gets thrown around, yet most people aren't aware of the nuance. Typically, we throw this word around about bloated corporate rock bands, mired in their own importance (see late period Floyd). So convinced are they of their own genius that they assume everything they produce will be absolutely earth shattering, when, in fact, it can be said to be insipidly obvious.

The other definition, which some people might argue is the same thing, is striving for new breakthrough, consciously pushing your art, and it is in this way that great bands are pretentious bands, with each performance, each album, being evolved from its predecessors; Funhouse is better than eponymous debut; White Light/White Heat is better than The Velvet Underground and Nico, and while this isn't always the case, it does illustrate the importance of a band pushing its limits. You should want bands to evolve, and grow, and stop living in some constructed past. Some bands are pretentious, and pull it off. Don't confuse this with that shit Jack White puts out now, or worse, that horrible ersatz post punk bullshit...Going for it...no bullshit...no pose...getting out on the limb...the canvas widens...highwire...dangerous and uncompromising...

This is the fucking real thing, folks...

Don't Stop...Relivin'

Jesus tap dancing Christ...

The Sopranos finale begat endless Journey ad nauseum-perhaps my number one complaint about the end of the series...

Until now...

Hillary, without a hint of irony (are the Clintons like the Sopranos?) gets Bill in on this absolute hack of the Sopranos finale, all to unveil the official Hillary fight song...

What song could possibly encapsulate the optimistic narcissism of Hillary? What song could possibly top Bill's horrid Fleetwood Mac "Don't Stop" vapid platitudes?

"You and I" by Celine Dion. Celine Dion? Wow, that's an edgy choice. Guess you got the post menopausal vote locked up, but what about the rest of us?

Look...not the campaign song matters that much, but c'mon...does this inspire anyone to do anything, other than take a crap. Really...how inspiring is Celine Dion? If you aspire to be the Quebecois Barbra Streisand, I guess it would be pretty damn inspiring.

However, if you are toiling out in the real world, you'd be more inclined to want something like John Lennon or the Clash...

Celine Dion, the ersatz Babs, in some respects, is the perfect fight song for Hillary, the ersatz Bill. Neither Celine nor Hillary have the brains nor the talent of their betters...

Kill the Poor

The High Price of Being Poor in Kentucky
Kentucky's working families frequently pay a premium for everyday necessities. Lower-income workers there are more likely to pay more for home loans, auto loans, car insurance, basic financial services, and home goods. However, through a combination of initiatives that bring down business costs, curb unscrupulous behavior, and boost consumer knowledge, public and private leaders can bring down these prices, creating up to thousands of dollars in extra family spending power.

I sure hope that creationism "museum" gives the local economy a boost.

Read the report here

Under My Wheels

How many loyal consigliaris has BushCo thrown under the bus now?:

"Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the nation's top military officer, told superiors last month that he would not retire voluntarily, forcing the Bush administration to make a public declaration last week that it had decided to replace Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Guess he should have gotten behind waterboarding. Or personally made the surge a success.

Gonzales and the Triumph of the Dil(does): Redux

This ain't over yet, Rove!:

"The Senate and House Judiciary Committees issued subpoenas on Wednesday to Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara M. Taylor, the former political director, ratcheting up the pressure on the White House to cooperate with the Congressional inquiry into last year’s firings of federal prosecutors..."

They got Al Capone on Tax Evasion, and let his syphillitic corpulence rot in a Florida Prison Hospital. I don't care how they get this sonabitch, as long as its legal. I don't need a smoking gun, some super damning piece of evidence that he masterminded the whole war, violated the Civil Rights Act, or smeared unto destruction decent people-history will provide that. A misdemeanor will do.

To the West!

From one Wizard to another: R.I.P., Don Herbert

Gonzales and the Triumph of the Dil(does)

Again, it appears to be clear that, no matter how much corruption, how much disgrace, this Administration foists upon the people and their Constitution, some of their "elected" representatives will bend to the Iron Will of King George...you can guess pretty well who voted how.

Take note how Liebermann, in his bid to be the most milquetoast neocon in history, knows who butters his bread.

Also: Joe, Chris and Barack...try showing up for work next time.

Ideology trumps truth again...and we are poorer for it.

Except for this guy.

Hey, they don't call them the Greatest Generation for nothing.

The Stupidest Idea since the CIA Castro "LSD" Cigar

via the Tavern Wench...your tax dollars at work:

A Gay Bomb

Can you imagine the Strangelove-like panting in some secure war room over the prospect of this?

Or maybe you'd rather not.

Finale

The last time I wrote about the Sopranos Final Season, it was over a year ago, and on our friend Covington Jim's blog.

And now, tomorrow night really is the final episode.

Sure, the production schedule for the Sopranos was maddening, because you never knew whether you would get a new season on time, or not. And what the fuck? We got a season spread over 2 years? 8 episodes per year?!

Certainly, I have heard from some folks that the Sopranos's last season was a disappointment, that nothing really happened.

I didn't think so.

The thing you have to remember about this show, and its importance, is that it broke the rules of television, and not just because of sex and violence: It broke the rules of television because it could not be neatly fit into consumable bite sized episodes, or seasons, for that matter. While it is true that shows have ran with extended story lines-none, save for Soap Operas, have attempted something so vast, and did it so artfully, as the Sopranos.

What David Chase went for was the reality of these gangsters, not the surface: They are fucked up, flawed humans, whose are often mundane. It is in the mundane, inane, trivialities that we become attached to these characters, that they transcend TV, and enter something that is typically reserved for literature, film, and the Simpsons: Cultural Cache.

To say that nothing happened last season is false, because everything happened last season. Each and every medium shot of Christopher Moltisanti, as clausterphobic as a sniper's scope, told you what was going to happen. Every moment Tony dodged disaster leads to this finale.

I was, am, riveted, though a little sad. I've watched this show since it debuted, and have fallen in love with the idea of well written television, which is something sorely lacking on network TV.

And here's another thing that makes the Sopranos great, related to the storyline: The writing has been inventive, nuanced, and almost invariably fantastic. They broke the rules by making writing the most important thing. Each episode is a crucial piece of the puzzle, and each piece must fit. Episodes could go from poignant to hilarious to vicious, and the whole time, keep you entranced. For that hour, from the iconic theme music to the credits, you lost yourself, as with any good literature or film. Every lose yourself during "According to Jim"? (Actually, I did once: Then I sobered up, and felt dirty afterward.)

Television, long labeled the "vast waste land" has found itself nearing terminal velocity in its downward trajectory since the first television writers strike begat Reality Television, and the only break in this has been the cable series, with HBO leading the pack. It's not that network television can't do what cable does; it won't. Network television, and its "shows" are nothing more than a bland diversion from the blander products it is designed to shill. I'll pay up front, P &G, and get something with substance.

Well, salut Sopranos devotees. Television's vast waste land just got a lot more wasted.

UPDATE: Of Shenanigans, Duality and the Duplicitous Auteur...

I, like many, screamed, or texted, "Shenanigans!!!" at the conclusion of the Sopranos Series Finale, feeling cheated at not having a real chance to say farewell to the characters and milieu I had grown so fond of this last 7 years. I was with friends, all of who were fans, and everybody was baffled, then pissed.

I watched it again later on HBOW, and tried to remove all the expectations I had, stripped away my feelings that come my personal investment in these characters, and watched it as I analyze any text, again, looking and listening beyond plot points.

My new verdict: I no longer feel that it is absolute shenanigans...in fact, I no longer feel any sense of shenanigans at all, except for the shenanigans that any author (or auteur) brings to their work. The Deacon sends an article that may help clarify.

The abrupt ending is likely the death of Tony, and what is confusing is the sudden point of view jump: As viewers, we are used to a certain omniscience, in that we are watching, from a safe distance, the action in the frame. For the whole series, apart from the music, which may comment on the action, or may be a counterpoint, or may not even be in the world of the character (but part of our understanding of that world), we have been outside, looking in: Tony is a character that we watch, watch his actions. Why would the action suddenly switch to Tony's point of view?

I think the answer, to some degree (and certainly open to speculation, on its meaning, at least) is Tony entrance into the diner, which is a relatively long take. As Tony (still in black leather jacket)looks around, presumably for a booth, suddenly,right in the middle of the diner, he sees himself, having already arrived, waiting for his family. the next thing we see, is a tight shot of Tony already having sat down.

Of course, this isn't the first time there has been multiple Tonys; Tony as Kevin Finerty (or, as Covington Jim pointed out yesterday morning, Kev-InFin-erty), who plays out the action at the beginning of sixth season, all while the reality of Tony occasionally interrupts in the form of helicopter spotlights, and strange, disembodied voices. This twist fit well into the duplicitious nature of the characters, who were, in a very real sense, multiple people, depending who was in the room.

This still, however, doesn't really explain the two Tonys in the same plane, except that, as the shot unfolds, and we recognize and zoom in on the sitting Tony, something has to account for this sudden jump? If the two Tony's are reconciled by, in fact, being just one Tony, then why would Chase, in this scene in which many people come into the restaurant, take off their jackets, and sit down, have Tony suddenly sitting down, jacket off, like he'd been there a while? Hincty...

I think, ultimately, we have to deal with the two Tony's; one partially omniscient, watching the action from outside himself while still participating in it, and the Tony is fully participating in this scene, and thus, when the screen goes black, because you don't hear the shot that kills you, as alluded in "Soprano Home Movies", Tony as observer, as our eyes, in this scene, go black as well. Tony Soprano is dead, killed in a diner, interestingly, wearing the shirt he wore in the pilot.

What we are left with, still, is the usurping of classical tragedy, which Mafia movies are generally steeped in, because we are left without a denouement, or a cathartic experience. This is because we are complicit in this action as spectators, we know too much. The duplicity that is at the heart of the this show, and criminality generally, extends to the auteur himself: Chase has been lying to us the whole time, and, because we are complicit, and Chase is the duplicitous auteur (a Boss of the narrative, if you will), when the scene goes black, and we reflect about all the clues we have been given, perhaps it is not Tony who gets whacked, but we, who believed Chase, Boss, wouldn't do this to us. But hey, Chris probably didn't think Tony would do that, either.

In short, we got killed, folks.

Bravo, Mr. Chase, Bravo.

Update to the Update: David Chase tells us...nada.

Political Commentators and Their Crushes

I honestly don't know what to make of all these men in the political establishment who insist on using their mancrushes as some sort of guideline for who is and is not "presidential." -by digby
Read on
Damn straight. What is up with that?

"We've got to get out of the business of solving problems..."

-Mitt Romney, Last Night, Republican Debate.

Usually, I'd lay down some wacky post structuralist inter-text concerning the latest installment of the Thunderdome of Stupid, but, I'm wiped, I've been grading all day and night and, frankly, last night was just too fucking easy:

"I believe George W. Bush has tremendous characteristics. He’s very honest, he’s very straightforward. I would put him out on a lecture series talking to the youth of America about honesty, integrity, perseverance, passion, and serving the public...".
- Tommy Thompson

Of course, Shitt Romney wasn't done with the non sequiturs...after getting called out by an online question as to why someone who supports English only would air ads in Spanish (23-24), we get this stunning summation of the G.O.P as he sees it:

"What the Republican party has to stand for is more than solving problems. " What, like, creating them? You've proved you can roll out a clusterfuck like nobody's business.

What a douche.

If you support this douche, that makes you a douche.

Don't be...

Radio Radio

The Man of Wealth and Taste, friend of this blog and tireless crusader for Corporate Radio's Hindenberg-ing, informs us that:

"On Friday, March 2, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) released a decision that will dramatically increase the royalties payments owed to rights holders to stream sound recordings of music offered on the internet. This includes all public radio websites.

The effect is a large increase in cost for public radio to webcast its music programming. While the exact amount has yet to be calculated, initial estimates place the potential cost in the millions of dollars of additional fees over the license term. In addition, the rates escalate about 240% over a five-year period. Such an increase threatens the viability of public radio’s future presence in on-line music streaming.

The rate structure announced by the Board is a disincentive to public radio’s public service mission of bringing new, culturally enriching programming to the American public. Where I live, 89.7 WNKU’s mission has been to appeal to your diverse interests by presenting a wide variety of musical, artists and styles including many from our own region here in Kentucky, Cincinnati and the Ohio Valley. WNKU’s website stream has enabled the station to showcase our unique programming and rich, musical heritage to a worldwide audience. The local PR station in your hometown is no different.

Section 118 of the Copyright Act of 1976 specified “a fair return to copyright owners without unfairly burdening public broadcasters.” Clearly this is not the case here. Congress will introduce a bill (H.R. 2060) addressing both noncommercial and commercial streaming services, the “Internet Radio Equality Act”. In order for this bill to be considered, approximately forty co-sponsors are need among our state representatives in Washington.

Please contact your congressional representativesthis week and ask them to co-sponsor and support the Internet Radio Equality Act. You’re re welcome to write a personal request or use this link for the “CRB IREA support letter.” These messages can be conveyed in many ways, but the most effective are faxes, telephone calls and emails.

This legislation recognizes public radio’s public service mission and will put these royalties under the same system and standards as the royalties we currently pay to the publishers/songwriters. We believe artists should be fairly compensated but under a system that allows the continuing operation and development of the Internet streaming of music that does not get exposure in commercial broadcasting.


Thank You

The Man of Wealth and Taste"

Thunderdome of Stupid: Democrats and the Iraq War (slight return)

After watching the Democrats, in an act of craven cowadice, cave to King George, I wonder how those who voted for (Biden) and against (Clinton, Obama, and Dodd) would answer the question in their next debate.

Did anybody watch it? It was on Fox, right? Was there a replay? Was it even on?

Is There an Indictment or Something?

Jeez...wonder what made Dan Bartlett jump off the "good" ship SS Fall of the Empire? Things are going so smooth...

A Spiritual Cramp to All of Us

Maybe it's the Chantix, and maybe it's the sleep dep that comes at the end of every quarter, but this is wretched beyond digusting:

"Former president George H.W. Bush sobbed as he spoke of how much the minister meant to him, calling Graham 'a spiritual gift to all of us'. Bush noted that the preacher had comforted four generations of the president's family, including the current President Bush, who sent Graham a handwritten note last week.

Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton recalled how Graham helped bring blacks and whites together in the South through his insistence that his crusades be racially integrated."

Well, before we starting getting all misty for the misunderstood Billy Graham, let us not forget that an insistance on integrated crusades cannot and should not be construed as anything other than ostensible desegregationist: Just below the surface, however, we have another anti semitic wingnut, dressed up in his sunday best.

So Clinton and Carter showed up to honor this piece of shit, a man who said at Nixon's funeral that Tricky Dick "respected the Office of the President". Evidentally, in Mr. Graham's estimation, respect in shown through carpet bombing, wire taps, and obstruction of justice.

So it goes that public officials piss away their credibility.