Musical Hair's Musings

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap /20040429/ap_on_hi_te/mus ic_on_a_stick

The above should be a link to a news story.

This is not news in any way what so ever. In fact it reminds me of a big difference between the RIAA and a lot of artists. The RIAA believes that when fans freely distributing music amongst each other is hurting artists. There are a lot of bands that feel the complete opposite, and not starving local bands that will never really achieve success, but big name acts going back many many years. These bands have encouraged taping of their shows, and tapes go back through the band's entire career. Many attribute part of their success with this inclusion among bands that are "taper freindly".

Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Phish, Dve Mathews, Steve Kimmock and many others have encouraged fans to record their shows. Last Friday when I took my kids to see Jefferson "Starship" (playing old Airplane songs), three taper teams were in the audience. We sat near one team, in the "null" of the mics (we hope anyway). They showed up with a pair of Earthworks mics set in ORTF and recorded to DAT, they had the mics up at the same height as the PA speakers centered but slightly to the back of the audience. Another had a pair I couldn't identify (pencil type small diaphram condensors) set in coincident-pair X-Y. Further to the front is a team of tapers with an Audio-Technica stereo mic, but the were over to the right side of the audience, so I don't know what kind of stereo image they got.

My point is that tapeing of concerts is a highly evolved exercise. I've got a tape of Jefferson Airplane still being re-produced by the taping community from 1968. There are guys that have nearly ever show they ever played. The Dead's taping community is ledgendary.

Bands that encourage these tapers hope to expand their fan bases through these taper communities. The assumption is that most of these tapers already own every version of any album/tape/CD that the band has produced, and if they don't then they will after they get hip to the band. The minor losses of potential income can not becompared to gains in ticket sales, tee shirts, concessions etc, plus the potential to gain real fans that buy EVERYTHING.

I remember an internet discussion of a CD version of Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation. Apparently, the first CD of the 1968 album cut short the fade on the song "If You Feel", when compared to the album. The remastering of the song on a compilation extended the fade out from what was on the original album. The whole extent of this difference is like 5 seconds, but the debate raged on which version was better. These guys owned every offically released version of the song and could debate it. These guys were all tapers.

This "new" device will record the lamest, lowest-quality sounding thing, in mono. It just reminded me about the differences between the RIAA and a lot of artists that encourage high quality taping of shows.

When I heard that there was a March for Women's Rights in Washington this weekend, I really expected a disappointing turn out that the right would jump all over. Martha's failure at the Masters' golf tounament last year maybe was the biggest reason for this, but I had a few others. One is a big pet peeve of mine: schedualling important protests on the same days and dividing "the" movement.

Before all the protests that lead up to the war and other internationally based protests like the Seattle protests, other marches on Washington sort of fizzled since the "million man march". The pre-war anti-war protests were gigantic and the were well coordinated all over the country. Seattle's success was largely due to the world wide network of groups that really do great work against globalization. Since I've had two little kids now I've not really gotten out to may protests, I actually feel shame about it. Once my kids are old enough, we'll be out there as a team, but that is a few years away still.

This weekend I celebrated my youngest ones third birthday. It is a big event because she'll remember this in some way next year. What we do this year will stick in her head and she know to expect a 4th birthday celebration. See until she turned 3, she didn't believe or I guess just didn't get the idea that she was turning three. At her day care she finally had her party, just like her freinds that are a week or two older. She was so happy, for those that might read this that don't have kids, this is the most amazing thing to see. Happy, sharing, and loving kids really make you have a faith that the world can become a better place, and can fill your heart with a kind of peaceful and happy feeling that nothing really equals. The only thing that comes close for me are moments where I actually acheive something really great musically either composing or improvising-- in that sense I see raising kids as family/social responsibility, and as a sort of artistic expression.

Anyway while I'm raising these kids and struggling along in my career waiting for the kids to get older so they can get out in the streets and participate in their democracy, I feel a kind of shame that I don't get out to these things that often. This weekend is a typical example.

Mumia Abu Jamal turned 50, I guess it was Saturday, and they had a protest in Philadelphia that day. Mumia is a prisoner on death row in Philadelphia and, without getting into the issues surrounding his case, there are many issue-oriented activists that join together around his cause. I guess it was ten years ago when former gov. Tom Ridge signed the death warrent that set in motion Mumia's execution (which was "stayed" while appeals struggle on). At that time many people from around the world came out to protests right here in the US. The case for Mumia's re-trial was the push over the edge into radical-left politics for me. Ten years later this man, this best-selling author, this activist, award winning journalist, this voice of the voiceless, this inspiration still rots away on death row. I still wear the tee-shirts I bought on the night when a band called Lucid Dreams sang their line "Kill the man and bring him back on a tee shirt or a button" in their thick Jamaican accents mocking tone with looks that could kill at comfortable educated white lefties like me.

It reminds me that the right has all the time in the world, they fight for their grandchildrens' taxes and profits. The left fight fires set by our current right's grandparents. The right only have a couple of issues: profit, class protection, wealth, not much else. Everything else that matters is a left issue. Activists that work on anti-death penalty issues also work on women's rights, electoral reform, and all the othe progressive issues. Activists are a special breed, and all to often their efforts are divided
too thin because there are so many issues and so little time.

The thing is, everyone heard about this march on Washington this weekend. How much did it damage the March in Philly for Mumia? I don't know, see I had a three year old to celebrate a third birthday, and I kinda wanted to get Who tickets for their show at the Madison Square Garden (which I didn't get anyway, I'm a back-sliding libeal I guess). I could pretend that I'm raising a next generation of activists.

I just wish they could schedual things a little better. Mumia needs a re-trial, women do need their rights protected, my kid needs her third birthday, and I'd like my 6 year old to see the Who or what's left of them before Pete gets jailed in an English version of our Michael Jackson trial. Well at least they got to see Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner Friday, and they'll see Richie Havens in a couple of weeks.

Richie Havens: http://www.richiehavens.com
For more about Mumia http://www.freemumia.org/
There aren't any really good web sites for the Airplane but here is something: http://www.jeffersonairplane....

I still don't "get" this placing links in here, so I tried a new way, we'll see how it looks.

This country is not as divided as people think. Only 7% of our population feel we should ease-up environmental regulations, that they are too strict right now. That 7% is simply wrong; but they hold such influence that-- regardless of what person or party is in charge-- industrial polutant regulations are always under attack. In a democracy, this 7% should have precious little influence but unfortunately they do.

They force our government to hold out dark hopes that "Global Warming" and industrial emissions are unrelated. They role back air quality standards, water quality standards, ignore evidence that our oceans are dying from the bottom up, ignore the growing amount of industrial pollutants found in baby teeth and breat milk all around the world, and ignore the connections between pesticides and lowering ages of puberty world wide. Each of these issues are important to our continued success as a species, and to our quality of life.

Public understanding on many of these issues is very limited, because media outlets are discouraged from dealing with them in meaningful ways, for fear of offending their advertisers. They must "balance" scientifically valid experts with industry hacks that spread FUD in order to protect their industries. technologies that use wind, solar which could reduce our dependancies on the middle east are underfunded and poorly understood by most of us-- and still further along that Bush's "hydrogen cell" technology. Biodesiel is fully functional fuel that can run cars and heat homes and burns clean and is something akin to compost material and can become readily available even with meager investment.

This should not come as a surprise, as earily as WWII the Scandinavians altered their cars to run off wood because of the war's comsumption of oil and gas. They refined their boilers and furnaces to be more efficient when burning wood. The point is that fuel efficiency and original thinking about where to find fuels-- especially renewable fuels-- are important to our countries independance and to the quality of life world wide.

This earth day contact your representative, your newspaper, and your favorite media outlet. Tell them how you feel about the environment. If these issues are unfamiliar to you, demand they cover them fairly. The future is coming apart quickly between war, fundamentalist intolerance, and the environment is often the "odd man out" among these struggles.

Environmental problems are not going away and they are not compromisable, but we have an advantage on them as opposed to war or intolerance: we at least have a public consensus about the reality of the issue and the need to address them. The only thing to do is make the politicians and the media pay attention to us 93%.

There are so many great organization in every state that people can get involved with. I've never been the kind of guy to start something when I see something that could potentially serve the purpose that already exists. It took me years to by my first power tool, because I had hand saws of all kinds, block planes etc and didn't see the advantage. Maybe this is a similar case.

What I'd like to see, either in addition to or as a more obvious part of all the great progressive an charitable organizations that exist, is a network of small citizen groups in each legislative district to schedual meetings with our representatives to keep them honest and responsive to our needs.

Meetings could be set up monthly and be built around so kind of research, and invited speaker or film. Independant research could be conducted by the group in preparation for a next meeting, which would be for preparation of a plan of action with which to approach your government. One or two individuals (or all, what ever can be done) could be set up to meet with their representative to discuss the issue and make sure he is as up to date on it and understands the will of this group.

Press releases about the group, the meetings, and the votes of the representative can be sent out to publicize these efforts.

Every major industry and every major corporation does this, it is about time we catch up. Now, I fully expect that regional differences will give each group a different agenda and opinion on the issues, that is why we have so many representative-- and by rights we should have more, the institiution was initially developed for 1 rep per I think 10,000 citizen. A return to this big number would make congress more responsive.

Please people tell me what you think.

When faced with the kinds of lies we've been fed by Bush and his diminishing number of cronnies, we have a choice: accept that we are lead into situtation against our will and that we are in a large part powerless against it, or fight against the lies and the lying liars that missuse our government for their own greedy purpose. Once the choice is made we feel locked in, either in denial or enlightenment.

The sad thing is that our govenment has been run by essentially the same ruling class interests for a very long time. Progressives that railed against NAFTA and GATT when Bush I tried to pass it, were also against them when Clinton succeeded. Some people on the left use the word "Liberal" to refer to the people that opposed NAFTA when Bush I tried to pass it, but flip-flopped when Clinton passed it. I think Nafta is one of those classic examples that shows how the two party system is in sense two tools the ruling class have to accomplish their goals.

If their first choice-- the Republicans-- can't get it done, then they use the Democrats to get it done. We are left either to see the game for what it is and find ways to change it, or pretend to believe that the are not being dupped as a whole by a relatively small number of people. The examples go far beyone NAFTA and GATT: trade status with China, welfare reform, taxes and a host of other issues when passed by Clinton were not that different than when they were proposed by Bush.

The cycle is as endless as it is ridiculous. Kennedy ran not as a liberal but a centrist: for the death penalty in spite of his Catholicism, and for cutting the capital gains tax. Johnson only got to pass his Great Society legislation because he gave them the war.

Them money made during that war still sits in bank accounts while most of the progressive legislation-- watered down as it was-- has long since passed away. When the first welfare laws were passed, the right insisted that it only goes to single mothers because they needed it the worst and we couldn't afford to pay for a welfare system solely based on family need like European countries have. No sooner that the ink dried on the first welfare bill, the right starts screaming that liberal welfare policy encourages the breakdown of the family unit and creates a culture of irresponsiblity among the poor.

Anyone perceived to be to the left of the imaginary center must genuflect and capitulate to the ruling classes issue d' juor just to get deep into the primary season. This may be why Carter's presidency failed so badly. I don't know what he did to piss them off, but it is not a mere coincidence that gas prices and trouble in an oil rich country coincided with Bush I's failed run through the primary season and his pick up as vice president.

Clinton only got the nomination because he placated the ruling class-- he was the only democratic candidate as he ran for the party's nomination to oppose a single payer health care system. Then after his and Hillary's health care fiasco fell apart-- which would have been a complete give away to HMO's-- the media now refers to it as an attempt at "single payer".

The best thing to do when looking at politics is to apply scientific reasoning. A theory is only as good at the predictions it makes good on. By that criteria Marx and Lenin are actually batting pretty well, Nadar is batting really well (especially on NAFTA and GATT), and Bush and Bremer and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Chilabi should be benced.

Right down what these people say and when they say it. Find people that say something wildly different: Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Doug Henwood, etc. Write down their opposing predictions. Clip newpaper articles and op-ed pieces. Then go back and see how is wrong and who seems to get it right.

This exercise which took about 5 years for me (allowing for the fact that I went back in time to find predictions), to complete pushed me to the left. The most obvious place for failed predictions, the easiest place to find them is in the environment, economics being second.

The fact that international affairs has become such an easy target to show how wrong the "right" is, shows instead how utterly incompetant Bush II is. If we could extriacate our government from these clowns-- Bush, Cheney, Bremer etc-- the remaining right wouldn't look nearly as bad as their current leadership make them out to be.

Here are some more mistakes of Bush's, as found on the O'Franken Factor page.

Quoting from their page below:

"When asked to identify his biggest mistake after 9/11 and the lessons he?d learned from it, Bush said:

?I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.?

Since that rude reporter put Bush on the spot, we?ll help him come up with a post-9/11 mistake:

DISMANTLING THE IRAQI ARMY:

"This was a mistake, to dissolve the army and the police," said Ayad Alawi, head of the security committee of the Iraqi Governing Council. "We absolutely not only lost time. The vacuum allowed our enemies to regroup and to infiltrate the country."

Retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a vocal opponent of the war, calls the move the Bush administration's "worst mistake" in postwar Iraq.

Oh, here?s another:

ALLOWING LOOTING TO HAPPEN IN IRAQ:

Former chief weapons inspector David Kay said: ?Post-[Operation Iraqi Freedom] looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime.?

Oh, and:

FAILING TO CREATE AN OCCUPATION WITH INTERNATIONAL LEGITIMACY:

James Fallows, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, wrote: ?The presence or absence of allies would have both immediate and long-term consequences for the occupation. No matter how welcome as liberators they may be at first, foreign soldiers eventually wear out their welcome. It would be far easier if this inescapably irritating presence were varied in nationality, under a UN flag, rather than all American. All the better if the force were Islamic and Arabic-speaking.?

US troops and Iraqi civilians are dying because of Bush's mistakes. The fact that he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- admit a single mistake ... (edited to remain in context) was an insult."

The page can be found here:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/bin/blogExcerpts.cfm?blogId=1&prg=3" title="http://www.airamericaradio.com/bin/blogExcerpts.cfm?blogId=1&prg=3" target="_blank"http://www.airamericaradio.co...

The point here is that Bush has failed so badly. Even if we take his prewar reason for going into Iraq at face value, that he wanted to disarm him, David Kay (a Bush Loyalist) indicates that the looting after the war made it mord difficult to find the supposed weapons.

Of coarse, now he avoids even admitting that he and his administration painted Iraq as an "imminent" threat. He wants to paint Iraq as one part liberation from horrible dictator and one part war on terror. Regardless of what his reasons were, it has been 10 parts failure.

They are floating the idea of reinstating the draft. I guess it is safe to say that Bush has over extended our armed forces. If that doesn't indicate it, then maybe the fact that they are further extending the soldier's tours of duty in Iraq indicates it. Over extending the troops, and having them at the emotional breaking point (away from home and in combat zones for too long exerts pressure on them, chicken-hawks may not thinks so but ask a vet) with no end to the conflict in sight show just how well planned this war was and just how much Bush and his band of clowns care about the troops.

In President Bush's press conference, he said he'd never ask young men or women to die in vain. When he undercut the army's own request for 400,00 troops to conduct the invasion of Iraq he guaranteed that young men and women would die in vain, on both sides.

I'm late on this, but over at Sam Adam's blog he has some analysis and a link to a Reuter's article about the terrorism experts quitting their positions because the "our" adminstration isn't focused on anti-terrorism.

You can't look at this any other way: Bush is failing us in the war against Al Qaida, he is failing the soldiers in Iraq, he is failing the Iraqi people he pretends to want to liberate.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-rontz&idq =/ff/story/0002" title="http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-RTO-rontz&idq =/ff/story/0002" target="_blank"http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/n...%2F20040407%2F1557479792.htm&sc=rontz

To: anyone that believes this president and his people did enough to counter the Al Qaida threat and to prevent the attack on 9/11.

From: Me.

RE: job application.

Let me get right to the point: I want to work for you! Afterall, I can completely ignore my responsiblities and still get good marks for job performance. Should I look up at closing? Someone else has the keys. That guy over there with sticking merchandise down his trousers? I can't tell the manager or security about it because of ... a .... ( :idea: !) a proceedural wall, yeah thats it! How long will you be on vacation over the course of a year? And I shouldn't disturb you for those four months-- oh, six months-- at all? Great, I would bother anyway. And when contractors come in, I shouldn't examine their bills or question any apparent inconsistencies, right?

References available upon request.

Very simply: if the President doesn't have to speak to the CIA director for the entire month of August during what they administration themselves are calling the "summer of threats", then what is the job of President for? At what point will the vast majority of people in this country see this clown Bush for what he is. Maybe this is what they mean when they say the difference when "pre 9/11" and "post 9/11" worlds. See pre 9/11 the presidency was a nice prize that spoiled brat Georgie got from his daddy's freinds on the Supreme Court, and the tool by which he could decide who benefitted most from this kleptocracy. Post 9/11 he has to spend a little time implementing plans that existed during Clinton's presidency concerning Al Qaida.

Bush couldn't think of any mistakes he's made during his war on "Terror", so I'm sure there are many blogs reminding him today. This is just one more.

1. His first mistake was not believing the out-going Clinton administration that Al Qaida was going to be his biggest priority-- he didn't believe that after 9/11 either as he was still hoping for a tie to Iraq.

2. His second mistake was to not act on a PDB that in it's title told him that Ossama Bin Laden intended on attacking inside the US.

3. His third mistake was not connecting this information in that breifing with the "chatter" about "something big" about to happen. Rather than mobilize his advisors and staff and our own on the ground agents and officers he to seek out what the threat was, he apparently was waiting for the details come handed to him across his desk like a menu at a restaurant. "If we had only known ...." goes the refrain that they use to explain why the failed. It is just like whe I play chess against a novice and he says "IF I knew you were going to move there I'd have done something different", the point is you prepare for what I might do not what you think or "Know" what I'll do. He is using the reason for his failure as his excuse, so much for accoutability.

4. His next mistake was not alerting the people in the second tower to evacuate. The people on the scene did not know there was a second plane, but the federal government did. Thanks, morons.

5, 6. I guess his next mistake was to let bin Laden's family out of the country with out even a question (let alone a good old fasioned law-enforcement beating), while asking his people to see if this can be pinned on Iraq-- that counts as two.

7. Withholding funds from and preventing the IRS from investigating Al Qaida's funding with the goal of freezing and distrupting their funding and their patrons.

8. Allowing the easily bribed Northern Alliance to seek out bin Laden in Tora Bora instead of commiting enough of our own troops to the task.

9. Fighting tooth and nail the 9/11 commission formation.

10. not seeing "actionable intelligence" leading up to 9/11-- which includes reports from almost every civilized nation telling us that something was about to happen-- but seeing "actionable intelligence" that has us in Iraq. Since he equates the war in Iraq with his war on "terror", every mistake in Iraq is fair game.

11. Believe Chilabi and other lying politically motivated clowns instead of his own intelligence people.

12. Seeking a connection to Al Qaida from Iraq when it was obviously not there while ingnoring known connections between the Saudi Royal family and Al Qaida that includes direct funding. See, it is common public knowledge that Iraq's BAATH party is supposed to be socialist and opposed to Islamic fundamentalist governments. That was part of the war between Iraq and Iran that was raging when I got out of the Navy. It is also common knowlege that Iraq had an Al Qaida prisoner that they continually tried to turn over to our government, but our government refused to deal with them to take the guy. This prisoner was later used to state in the press that Iraq and Al Qaida were connected.

13. Outing Joe Wilson's wife and potentially killing here because the former ambassador exposed the lies the administration told about the Niger story.

14. Fighting the investigation into that exposing of a CIA agent.

15. Pissing on an international good will we had by going to invade Iraq on what the international community knew was false pretense with a hodge-podge coalition that was bribed into participation instead of working within the UN and our traditional allies. If we enforced every UN resolution, do you know how many times we'd have invaded Isreal?

16. Attempting to privatize Iraq's oil reserves (A-HA says every cynical observer of Bush) which not only is against the Genevea Convention, but pissed off Iraq and every middle-easterner.

17. Intentionally using the word "Crusade" which pisses off every Muslim in the world, while saying we're not at war with "Islam". I say either fight or not, but don't tempt them to fight us while pretending to be passive-aggressive.

16. Sending approximately half the troops requested by the Army into Iraq, allowing caos to rule the day and rebellion to brew in the streets because of the insufficient troop coverage.

17. Setting up a puppet government led by Chilabi-- instead of firing him suing him or arresting him or handing him over the Iraqi people for all his lies that led us to this point-- who hasn't been to Iraq in 40 years and whose motives are transparent to the Iraqi people.

18. Standing in front of a "Mission Accomplished" sign, then pretending his people didn't tell the navy to put it up (what a weasel, come one I hate weasel's like that).

Are there more? Of course, but I'll get to them later, and I look foward to seeing the ones I've missed on other blogs, on Democracy Now!, and Air America, on Taking Aim, and on Expert Witness.

Oh, I'll spell check later, I've got a kid to take Ice Skating...

Suzzy Roach is on right now at Air America's Laura Flanders show.

She has a new record out where at their web site, http://www.roches.com/ , they asked people to put up their prayers and they put the prayers to music.

They played some of the songs on the radio program between segments of the interview, and it is great. Simple folk pop type stuff but the Roach sisters all can sing so nicely, and the prayers made great songs.

Amazing amazing stuff.

The fine English fingerstyle guitarist Richard Thompson has a cute little tribute to Janet Jackson up on his web site.

Here is a link:

http://www.richardthompson-music.com/audio/dear_janet.mp3" title="http://www.richardthompson-music.com/audio/dear_janet.mp3" target="_blank"http://www.richardthompson-mu...

At least listen up to the 2:40 mark or so.

Here is his web site:
http://www.richardthompson-music.com/" title="http://www.richardthompson-music.com/" target="_blank"http://www.richardthompson-mu...


As I mention on the comments on that rant, musicians have been grousing about bad music since ... well ...forever I guess. Obviously the hungrier the musician the more the complain, but here is a link to one such breif discussion:

http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic" title="http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic" target="_blank"http://www.musicplayer.com/ub...;f=5;t=008259

I found this at "checkitout"'s blog, linked over at the side panel. I'm adding a link here to something he also linked because it is great reading.

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/04/edi04 028.html" title="http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/04/04/edi04 028.html" target="_blank"http://www.buzzflash.com/edit...

Good stuff.

Dr. Rice's testimony apparently didn't sway anyone's opinion about our country's handling of pre 9/11 intelligence. That should be astonishing, but really it isn't. Our population is so polarized and "opinionated" that it is discourse and dialouge that leads to learning and growth is almost impossible. For once people should put aside opinions and just look at information, because the stakes are so high. But we apparently we are all too opinionated to exercise our own critical thinking skills and learn when we gain new information. This needs to change or inflexibility will be a bigger long term threat to our country's ability to maintain our global standing than anything else going on now.

I want to mention the phrase "change your mind", it is associated with indecisiveness and weak-mindedness. This is not the case. Each new piece of information you learn should "change your mind" at least a little bit. Even if it changes your understanding of something or deepens your belief. You can't learn without changing your mind, and a mind that stops learning is useless.

Finding an opinion to have, so one can appear knowledgeable, happens way too often. People have opinions that know nothing about the subject matter. I've met all sorts of people that think global warming isn't happening, but that: have no science background, have never read any article either in a science section of a paper or in a scientific magazine, or have done any kind of research or review of the available information.

It is OK, to have no opinion on things we know nothing about. It is also OK to changes ones mind, that is what learning is all about.

Shortly after I left the Navy in 1989, Rudy Giuliani ran for mayor for his first time. I was a big fan of his, for all his wall street insider trading and organized crime prosecutions. He was a very high profile prosecutor, and when he first ran for mayor I thought he was great. Then sometime in the summer he had a rally near city hall. Many off-duty police were there as he was their candidate. They rioted, turned over cars, terrorized city african-american council members, and showed an ugly side that I've never before seen. The riot has been spun many times since then, but it is burnt into my memory. I could no longer support his run for mayor, because he was raising a level of racism and hatred in the city that was just ugly to see. I actually thought he would see it the way I did, and I hoped he would drop out of the race. Instead he embraced he events and he hooligans.

That was a big "change of my mind", but not the last. I don't look at it like I was wrong, I just didn't have enough information. As we all gain new info about events that matter in our lives we must be willing to change our minds or we will be doomed to a fate of inflexibility and stupidity.

When President Clinton bombed an aspirin factory I thought like so many others that it was a "wag the dog" scenario. The 9/11 commision has shown me otherwise. When 9/11 happened I new more about Pakistan an Saudi connections to terrorism than Afganistan's Taliban's connection. I didn't know what I know now and I wish we had done something sooner.

Dr. Rice's testimony has been praised by conservative pundits and seized upon by Air America and Democracy Now and various blogs-- both show her testimony as supporting their existing views. Rush Limbaugh has gone as far as to say that Richard Clarke's reputation is unsalvagable and Dr. Rice has corrected the mistruths that he spread during his testimony. Nothing can be further from the truth, but truth is always so very far from that druggie (what he called Jerry Garcia).

Dr. Rice admits being told about Al Qaida sleeper cells in the country, but explains that the warning came with no instruction on what to do about it. That is something she say's about some of Mr. Clarke's memos, that they came with no action plan. Why is that "good enough" afterall she was the senior offical, Clarke worked for her not the other way around. The Bush administration wants to say the problems both that the Clinton administration dind't give them an action plan, and that the plans they were given weren't good enough-- swatting at flies. It can't be both.

Dr. Rice continues to say, as GW Bush says, that if they had known what Al Qaida was going to do they'd have tried to stop it. That is not how the world works. When Richard Clarke suspected that a plane might be used to crash into the Atlanta Olympics in a terrorist attack, he had no solid evidence it would happen, and it didn't happen. He did the right thing. When the G8 met they made preparations for planes being used as terror devices, although it never happened. At first when she said weeks ago that no one could have known that Al Qaida was going to crash planes into the world trade center. Now it seems she and the Bush appointees and senior staff were the only one that didn't know.

Defense is the art of being flexible enough to respond to any attack that might happen. If we take Dr. Rice's testimony at face value, without considering what others have said, we'd have to conclude that our these people can not and do not act unless they have a time and place that they know is going to be attacked.

Really, I watched her testimony as it happened, and at first I thought she did an adequate job deflecting the questions and the suspicion that the Bush administration had been asleep at the wheel prior to 9/11. The more I listen to it over and over, it is clear from her own words that the Bush administration just didn't get the seriousness of this threat until the attacks had been completed, especially when considered in context of all else we know.

Every American must put aside their opinions and preconceptions and examine the information that we are gaining from the 9/11 hearings-- both the written testimonies and the well known televised testimonies. We have to know what has happened and what didn't happen. There is a lot of info. Suskind's Book, Clarke's book, and all the testimony paint a scary picture. Even the people still "loyal" to the president contradict each other and are essentially saying that they couldn't stop 9/11 because they didn't know exactly what the terrorists were planning, and when we they were planning it.

When the Super Bowl Half-Time show started having big-name musical guests, I was somewhat enthused. But ZZ Top hardly had a chance to actually perform and might just as well have been the kind of automatons they have at Disney. The only show that didn't disappoint me was U2. This past year there would be no way I'd watch that half time show. You see: I love music, I'm a musician, I can't bring myself to watch garbage. Thus when I heard about the nonsense that went on I wasn't surprised. Unless an performer sings exclusively about sex or thuggery, they are not considered commercially viable. Why then is it surprising when the "dancing" reflect the songs they're singing?

Music is one of the most powerful cultural tools we have. It is much more than art. It is used to teach children vocabulary, stories, and even math and history. Melodies ring through our minds, and change our moods and help us remember things. Musical expression has found parallels in science and mathematics. As an art form music is serves to express every aspect of human life and experience in every culture on earth. The finest musicians in the world spend their lives working on their craft to achieve the highest level of expressivness they can attain.

Why is this high art form that touches the hearts of people like no other art reduced to such simplistic and limited drivel when presented to the masses? Why is any one interested in Janet Jackson or Britney Spears or so many of these other performers in the first place? The songs they sing are about sex and not much else. Is it really that untiring of a subject to sing about? I doubt it. But the people that approve the songs they choose and promote and pay to produce their albums are always careful to not offend their audience with complex ideas or anything too deep artistically. I guess the only thing they can agree on is sex.

Then, when the songs are shallow and the subject is unendingly sex and the performances are dance routines-- because musical performance might lose the segment of the audience with diminished attention spans-- , what do we expect to be looking at when they dance? Are we so numb that the dry-humping they call dancing now is the totality of their performance, and if we're so numb, how did a pushed-up silicon-filled boob get so many people upset? Really, the whole thing is vulgar; it certainly isn't good music or high art; I can't believe that anyone that would leave the thing on would be offended. I was offended before it started, but then I love music.

I sort of hoped when the boob popped out, people would say, "what is this garbage I'm listening too?" "What made me think watching this would be a good thing?" Maybe "Why isn't Yo-Yo Ma, performing instead of this nonsense?" was a little high to hope for, but I can hope-- after all I love music.

I don't consider myself up-tight, but I do think it was wrong to pull that stunt. But, really what else are these performers going to do? The talentless attention seekers that can't express an artistic idea or create a genuine work of musical art have to fall back on sex. Isn't that the whole difference between "smart women" and "pretty women"? Not to sound sexist, but beautiful women have always used their sexuality just as anyone else would use any other skill or advantageous attribute they have. Then in the competition to be the sexiest singer and most alluring performer, why does it surprise anyone that we're nearing the era of singing go-go dancers and on the path to singing porn-stars?

This is no issue for me, see I love music. There are artists I listen to and clubs to see music live that are good and they enrich my life. If others are so offended the best thing that they can do is spend their money on good music. I see no reason why Janet Jackson or Britney Spears should be any wealthier than Sunny Murray or Sonny Sharrock or Laura Oltman.

I've been told I got some spelling errors in my first real entry on this thing. I did spell check it in my word processor (being too stupid to actually be able to spell on my own), but apparently Star Office 6 isn't perfect. I'm making this little entry to apologize to those whom my spelling offends.

As for my Grammar, if it offends you then too bad.

My next entry is going to more substantial, maybe about music. Since I'm new here, and new to Blogs entirely I guess I should say that if you want me to put a link to your blog here let me know in a message or private message here or what ever they are. I'll figure out how they work eventually.

Also, I see a lot of very cool looking blogs. Some features look like things anyone could add to their blogs but I've not found were to do that. Any pointers anyone could pass on to me is appreciated.

Stupidity and Sheepishness have become all too common in the United States. This is because our current administration has lied and deceived the people every step of the way since it took office, and their lies have reached a breaking point. Only stupid or sheepish people still believe the President isn't leading us into a dark abyss that: is jepordizing our standing in the world community, destroying our economic future, and rolling back all gains common people acheived since the 1890's. Bush's sole goal seems to create a permanent oligarchy similar that of pre-Magna Carta England, or ancient Rome.

With all the revelations that are coming out from the 9/11 commission hearings, it is equally clear that the administration more concerned in hiding their negligence than fighting actual terrorism. The sheepish in the country look at the administration's accusations towards Richard Clarke and others as valid. The sheepish will follow Bush right into hell, and chastize the rest of us the whole time. The stupid will insist that it is not possible for the administration to be as dishonest and duplicititous as the "left" now say they are.

Together the hacks of the administration, along with their stupid and sheepish minions attempt to call themselves the majority, and insist on the lead place in every discussion about our country's policies. We can no longer let them destroy the things that make this country great: freedom of speech, equality, freedom of the press, and the principles that make government responsive to the people. The Oligarchs want to break the will of the people and the sheepish and the stupid do not want to stand up. They'd rather pretend the obvious is not true, as though hiding from their fears will delay the arrivaly of the dire straights are in.

Our country is in deed in dire straights. We have a class of oligarchs that know no shame in their greed, nor in their disdain for the common independent man or woman. But they are a minor distraction, a spoiled and pampered distraction but distraction just the same, from the threat their rampaging imperialism has brought upon us: fundamentalist and radical terrorism.

These external threats now must be dealt with. We must not let the lust of oil executives to continue to distract us from defending our country, and we must not confuse stupid and misguided offense for defence. The best of our millitary are half way around the world while we at home hear day in and day out of new terrorist threats within our borders. Only the stupid think this is defending our country from terrorists, and only the sheepish are afraid to stand up against this.

I call on everyone with sense in their brain and courage in their hearts to stand up and speak out and against stupidity, narrow-mindedness, and to create a new conservatism, a new "liberalism" and return to and old kind of citizenship: one that conserves the lives of our soldiers to, that conserves our resources to escape the trap that has us in political-bed with the repressive regimes in the middle-east that help foster Islamic fundamentalism, and to conserve the constitutional rights that make our country the resilient powerhouse that it is.

We all must stand up and fight to take back our country from being dragged Right into an abyss.