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Atomized Links:
theUsual Suspects:
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Atomized junior
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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a Taxing Situation
A singular tax, its destruction, a jewel for the new republican crown
AlterNet: An Embarrassment of Riches. The estate tax repeal has been put on hold
AlterNet: Case Against Inheritance Tax Is Bogus,
however temporarily by the twin hurricanes. My father used to have the
opinion that in a world of taxes he would sweep away; starting with the
income tax, the estate tax is one he'd keep. Mind now this was a long
time ago before the Reagan revolution, the contract on America, and the
steady beat of gilded era "truths". Nothing that happened in the 20th
century really makes these people happy. Or really much of the 19th for
that matter. They have their periods and their sticking to them. I have
my opinions on this, that stem from those days; the death valley days
of the late progressive era. Repeal of the estate tax is inconsistent
with democracy. Antagonistic to it, even. The thin reality skinning the
grand illusion of class mobility in this society is the minute churn
made possible by the non-invinceibilty of the elite. It is possible to
fall out of it, to be nudged out. There are gaps. It is possible to
make money that does not owe its production to preexisting means. A
pinnacle upper class able to completely protect and transfer its wealth
essentially has escaped democracy. It insulates itself and alters the
rules of society to gather to itself ownership of all possible
production. Suppresses what it cannot own. It is a fantasist's notion
to suppose the nation's owners would be content exist obligingly
alongside the world of ordinary people. As the gulf between the classes
widens the remaining power political institutions increasingly becomes
a threat. Finally it will become necessary to take the rule of the
people away.
I've heard it said by Wall Street Journal editorialists that
Russia's recent repeal of it's estate tax validates our following suit.
Russia's autocratic state is increasing becoming a favorably exercised
example for American conservatives. Another gambit is to point to
nations with significantly lower Gini indexes, phasing out estate
taxes. For very different reasons neither of these examples is remotely
relevant.
Tax cuts are a political platform. We can imagine a simple
taxonomy of terms in combination which might include (1) tax +
spend (2) tax + tax (3) spend + tax (4) spend + spend. There is an
implied cause and effect, some of these equal balance and some
equal debt. Some among the conservatives celebrate the concept they
refer to as starving the beast. killing bad big government by
systematically attacking its ability to raise revenue. As important as
the concept of starving the government to death I believe that the need
to trot out a tax cut with every election cycle calls just as loud. Not
even the monumental cost of repairing the damage done by
Katrina
FT.com / World / US - Katrina clean-up will hit Bush agenda, says Snow can interrupt the process established.
I've always had a special contempt for governments that couldn't
handle natural disasters. Countries that boast gated communities
of millionaires, just uphill from a low plain of shantytowns. Regimes
that can't help their people because thats not how they ever saw
government as being. As protectors - leaders. They had nothing in place
that could even begin to accomplish this. They never saw beyond
their own preferred mix of wealth extraction and collection. Their own
blend of incompetency & ideology. The dismantling of FEMA
hollowing it, clearing it out of professional staff to make way for
nests of political spiders. This is the result of canvassing the
despots of the third world for ideas.
Even now what we get from our own regime, Three thin ideological initiatives
The Wave of the Future: From Tragedy to Far-Reaching Policy, in Less Than a Month - Center for Media and Democracy.
The 'Katrina' wage Cut (suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act) an
initiative that allows less than minimum wage be paid to workers in the
gulf states On Josh Marshall's sites TPM and TPM cafe,
some have tossed around a counter proposal to have those in congress
who support this have their own wages cut (if possible to below
minimum) -- seems only fair, but I'm not holding my breath.
There is also a House Republican Study Committee (RSC) who
have tasked themselves with providing free-market solutions in response
to Hurricane Katrina, high gas prices and other difficulties. As well
there is operation save-the-presidents-tax cut; officially known
as 'Operation Offset' a revisiting of the budget plan in in the wake of
the gulf states rebuilding programs. I have some questions as to what
they intend here. Are they volunteering to give back their own pork --
which would be something? Are they volunteering each others pork
-- still commendable? Or are they handing over new deal and great
society programs for slaughter while leaving they're on ox un-gored?
Dana Milbanks has written a piece for the Post
Deep Pockets, Small Government and the Man in the Middle illuminating the minor differences even within the GOP on these questions.
Naomi Kline has written a couple of articles for the Nation
Purging the Poor (heard of on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now). And has coined the phrase disaster capitalism
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
She notes the parallels in approach and in corporation of those who
would rebuild (for a small fee) New Orleans and contiguous devastated
areas, with the Iraq reconstruction period of two years ago under the
aegis of the Provisional Authority government
There has been a lot made of the efficiency of the military
and the market vs the inefficiency of government. This has led to talk
in jest of course of dialing back the Posse comitatus act [legislation
put in place toward the end of post civil war reconstruction that
placed a bright line between the military and civilian affairs inside
US territory. Similar suggestions would replace FEMA with Walmart
Wall Street shouldn't trump the government in emergency response | csmonitor.com.
These are good jokes, Beau Gestes. They miss the larger question. The
US military is after all part of the US government why can't
other government agencies be encouraged to attain the effectiveness of
the military With its esprit de corps, can-do attitude. Its cold clear
lines of authority. Why are the institutions of democratic government
forever asked to heap ashes upon themselves, give way to others and
remove themselves from existence? Purse strings of a people must
be tied and untied by someone, that someone calls the shots.
11:33:17 PM  ;;
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Sunday, September 25, 2005
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A good man is hard to find
I'm recycling the title of a Flannery O'Conner short story for
a weblog post. I think this may be illegal in some states. I can
always claim I'm a yankee and don't know any better. Thats yankee as a
mason-dixon boundary issue. Nothing to do with those pin-striped
yahoo's from Queens. I'm from the Bay State.
Having somewhat recently (and only recently) flipped the switch
on this buggy that gives me email notification when someone posts a
comment on Atomized Jr. here. I did see that someone put up a comment
on a post from 13 December 2003. It was from a Steve Myers who wrote to
say that he had been Mark Edmunds best friend in High School back in
North Canton Ohio. I had been writing a set of stories about Mark, who
I knew in the Navy right after Steve knew him. I have a few more
stories involving Mark and those times roughly sketched out, which I
will have to finish and share. Mark was one of a kind, I can not only
say something like "I've never known anyone like him since." I can add
to that - I never at any point expected to. And I've known Lithuanians,
and Peru-French-Canadians. Any thought that this Steve Myers might be
jerking my chain on knowing Mark are dispelled by lines like "spent
many late nights in drunken philosophical discussion about what is
important. Bastard would pass out and snore like the sailor he was to
become." Hey he does know Edmunds I thought. I haven't heard from Mark
in twenty years, but it would be about time.
11:35:25 PM ;;
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Sunday, September 18, 2005
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Roberts, John... No file found.
I tried through the second half of last week and over the weekend to
come up with a few words, on the outcome of a weeks worth of Senate
conformation hearings for John Roberts. For all that, all I have
is a feeling like a bait and switch is taking place. I'm falling back into
impressions of issues because I'm out out of my depth trying to think
through them or by reason uncover the causes and effects, of the
patterns of forces and power that actually shape this issue. An
emotional civic consciousness.
I've read all the articles I've seen on this. Well, I've read all these to the left here
at least. Much has been said (written), on not saying much. As
much his bona fides are absent from being laid out for all to
see. Assurances seem to be forthcoming from some quarters. A law
professor Robert P. George
writes at length about privacy in a NYT op ed The Supreme Court's Private Life - New York Times. He takes pains and much
careful moderate language to make sure we know there is no innate
constitutional right to privacy. He specifically mentions Griswold v.
Connecticut. To understand this op-ed one must work backwards from
Robert George's other recent writings. To get a stronger sense of
how he feels about constitutional privacy, how the notion of privacy in
Griswold was the antecedent for Roe vs Wade. Woman have 'no' right of
privacy in their reproductive being Our national sin by robert george. A weblog associated with
touchstone quotes George as stating that right-thinking people should
feel good about Roberts because he is a 'constitutionalist" and
understands what needs to be done . It is worth noting that George is
not explaining Roberts, he is explicitly telling Roberts his position.
What the Administration is hoping to gain is a twofer on a
half record. That's why he is being named to the court as its chief in
one compact set of hearings. Roberts is what I would call a test tube
nominee, grown for the job. The relative success of this
gambit is creating a future precedent in creating career paths where a
lawyer can gain just enough experience to seem like a viable candidate
to the US Supreme Court while leaving a work history (paper trail) that
can be substantially shielded from public scrutiny. Only in advising
corporate counsel positions, or turns in executive branch government
could this be accomplished. Do this and you name a political hot-house
flower to the bench. One of my brothers-in-law was a briefing asst. to
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during her confirmation hearings. Certainly
his primary interest was to keep her from saying anything that would
grievously antagonize anyone. Things have been heading that way for a
while, but is it in the public interest to perfect it. is it in the
public interest to reduce advise and consent to Stare Decisis on
nothing much. All the legislature - and the american people are left
with is a few minutes alone with a candidates temperament and
personality. It isn't enough. It isn't really anything at all.
11:56:31 PM ;;
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Thursday, September 15, 2005
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Operation Ceasefire
In case anybody hasn't noticed: Eric Boucher aka Jello Biafra is
bringing his latest circus to ground this Saturday (24 September).
Billed as Operation Ceasefire
: 4 days of Action for Peace and Justice here in Washington DC. There
is a gathering at 11am, a march at 1230, and a concert starting at
3:00pm near the Washington monument. Probably there will be several
episodes of random wandering around in amongst and after each of these.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists will go on stage around 7:54, previous to
that the Evens (ian mackaye, amy farina) at 7:09 and Sweet Honey in the
Rock at 6:23, Steve Earle about 4:40, and Thievery Corporation at
9:37.
A wide range of speakers including Cindy Sheehan will be on hand as well. Plus some sort of bicycle agitprop on Friday.
11:54:39 PM ;;
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Wednesday, September 14, 2005
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Boston English
My father, Hugh Bushmiller, is heading off to his sixtieth High School re-union.
I can't say with 100 percent certainty, but this may the first
High School reunion he has gone to. First one since I've known him. June 1945 is when he graduated from Boston
English. Also known simply as
The English High School !
There have been a number of buildings and address in the English
Schools history the alumni subsite from link above has pictures of all
of them. I tried to find a link for this event - the reunion. I don't
know what I might have been thinking. People of my fathers generation
think the internet is something used in the cod fishing industry.
"Somebody oughta take care to tie those internets to the boats better,
the stray ones are so thick in some places I hear of kids surfing on
them." My father will have nothing to do with PC's, just doesn't care,
too much trouble. Fortunately this means he is probably not
reading this, but if he is... Hi Dad.
I think he said a while ago the plan was for some of the
re-unionites to catch a Red Sox game. Robert doubts this because
he claims Sox tickets are impossible to come by.
Wikipedia has a stub article up for Boston English put up a year ago and left to twist in the wind since English High School of Boston - Wikipedia.
I added a link for the official boston/k12/english site (the link
above) and noted one additional alum - class of '52. Remind me to ask
my Dad why both English and Latin claim to be the oldest public school
in the country, somebody must be invoking a technicality. I see that it
lists Leonard Nimoy as having gone to English. Nimoy might have been a
freshman there when my Dad was a senior, I'm surprised he hasn't
mentioned this before. Maybe he did and I forgot. I forget a lot of
stuff.
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Sunday, September 11, 2005
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Following Up
Somebody asked me why I titled that last post Katrina
Ballerina. I dunno, it's a Woody Shaw song. One of the radio stations
I listen to played it and it stuck in my head.
I was surprised just how fragile the Telecommunications grid
proved to be. I mentioned this last time, then I read another
Washington Post article on this
Telecom Damage Tops $400 Million.
Wireless ain't always that wireless. I had the mistaken impression that
cell phone networks were entirely propagated by microwave -- from a
central area location to individual cells in a multiplex trunk feed
then out to individuals. Apparently though land lines are routinely
used to get the data to a cell's signal tower. If the land lines
are damaged that cell gets no feed. Possibly failed communication
played a sizable role in the confusion of those first days.
Burning the players in effigy. Why would FEMA attempt to block
photographs of bodies, bodies that were allowed to sit out in the open
for days on end or try to block journalist working inside the city.
This is a indefensible recourse to censorship by political hacks
masquerading as bureaucrats to maintain a favorable spin on a disaster.
However, my sister Susan was in favor of this, because she does not
want her two young sons (my nephews) to encounter these photographs in
the daily newspaper, a defensible position. A newspaper editor on last
Friday's Diane Rehm show answered that question by saying that in
normal circumstance he never would, in a paper he ran, but for a period
that first week it seemed like the various levels of government were
close to failing to get abreast of the events. The situation became
extraordinary and it was necessary to overcome attempts by people to
manage coverage of what they did not truly comprehend. In the end
censorship is bound to fail, it can only make FEMA look like fools (
Director of FEMA Stripped of Role as Relief Leader - New York Times) caught in a regenerative partisan loop.
Another key point focusing on local government is the evacuation.
At work, Tuesday 30 August, before the full scale of the disaster was
apparent, my friend Robert and I hit up the Tulane Univ. website to see
if their library was in danger (we work in a University Library).
Tulanes main server was down they had only some web log like posts on a back up [see sidebar: messages from the president]. One of them from the university's president read in part:
August 27, 2005 - 10 a.m.
Message regarding university closure...Everyone should begin implementing their personal hurricane plan now.
That pretty much says it all.
I don't think any one ever tried to evacuate a major city before
The Steady Buildup to a City's Chaos ..
I see in many articles that this is part of disaster planning
scenarios as the primary way they are going to deal with radiation
dirty bombs, chemical or biological warfare attacks or even certain
pandemics. I hope they will now include in such plans some way of
dealing with the 5 to 10 percent of the population which has never paid
an attention to authority or laws at any point in their lives. As well
as those, like myself, who do not have their own personal automobile.
Or should I understand that if I have not bought that far into the
American dream that I am simply expendable?
The Sunday papers seem to have covered this pretty thoroughly.
So I just see a couple of distinctions to make in all this. One deals
with questions about the size of the storm vs event space. Event
space is just my own term for the risk analysis notion of the
statistical likelihood of a storm of a given size to come to a given
area in a given period of time. Katrina was in fact an extraordinarily
powerful storm (see NWS definition of their Saffir-Simpson wind rating scales).
However as one looks at the steadily increasing costs of hurricanes,
are we seeing bigger storms or brittler coasts?
Another facet to distinguish is Political vs Governmental.
The administrations current predicament revolves around their failure
to hit the right note in political damage control and resulting falling
polling numbers
washingtonpost.com Bush Losing Support From His Base.
Part of this is not correctly reading the essential nature of 11 Sep
01 against Labor Day '05, given the Indian Ocean tsunami in between. It
didn't have a fiends face - nor was it elsewhere.
Politics also involves management, putting competent people in critical
positions -- before disaster strikes, and after. One of the first
thoughts that came to me when the negative impact of the FEMA/DHS
bureaucratic reorganization
The Aristobureaucrats
became apparent, was the recent national intelligence reorganization.
My four years as an Intelligence Specialist rating in the Navy, and
subsequent years as a political science major give me only a small
narrow view into that world. Still the doubts I have about that
certainly increased in this last week. So should yours
The political, irrespective of their left/right stylings, stand
in a permanent position before the public; that their prejudices and
nostrums on the correct size of government, effective management, etc.
add up to competency and service to the general welfare. Politics is
not media advertising where demographics with currency mean everything,
and demographics without currency, mean nothing. This distinction is
preserved whether that currency is money or massed political
(opinion) Everyone matters because your mandate is everyone
Katrina Pushes Issues of Race and Poverty at Bush , not simply who you choose to lead. ---
Addendum: fate of a political liability Embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown Resigns, see also Josh Marshall's TPM
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Thursday, September 8, 2005
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Antony and the Johnsons
Antony and the Johnsons win Mercury I love this little news item; because I like pointless controversy.
Antony Hegarty despite growing up in California and having a
career based in New York somehow won the Mercury Award -- the award for
best Brit pop album. I've heard a little bit of Antony and the Johnsons
I guess going back a year, and only a little. Even on the stations I
listen to he wasn't getting played that much (it has been pointed out
they are essentially still on an indie label).
I like them largely because they are very different from everything
else I hear, very very different. The only thing I might think to
compare him to was Tim Curry's cover of Jay Hawkins I put a spell on
you, or imagining what Klaus Nomi might have sounded like doing jazz
blues. Salon had a review of of a New York show earlier in August with
some background
Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Audiofile Antony and the Johnsons, Lou Reed likes him so....
The favorites to win the Mercury had been the Kaiser Chiefs, they're not happy. I predict a riot.
11:44:52 PM ;;
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Tuesday, September 6, 2005
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Katrina Ballerina
Not to seem harsh or negative minded but: any narrative of
the whole event has to admit of a comprehensive failure. The
first failure would be to adopt a mind set that would seek to deny
failure in order to avoid blame
White House Backpedals on Flood Control,
or to only look for problems once Katrina swirled into the Gulf of
Mexico and headed north. It was a failure to follow through from
problem identification and planning
The Man-Made Disaster - New York Times.
Reports and warnings were written and issued at all conceivable levels:
University studies, Corp of Engineers studies, City Government Studies,
environmental studies, journals
Scientific American: Drowning New Orleans and the popular press
THE SUNKEN CITY The New Yorker, newspapers
Feds' Disaster Planning Shifts Away From Preparedness,
FEMA knew storm's potential, Mayfield says, and television.
In the face of some of what is now being said, this was not a
"100 year event", a monster storm. Just a cat. 4 hurricane, that was
reduced to a cat. 3 shortly after crossing the gulf coast on the center
of the gulf's northern perimeter. It was down to a tropical storm by the
time it was 160 miles inland. There are formal parameters, I imagine,
on which such prediction is based, but it seems to me it might be wiser
to see this as a 50 or even 25 year event. Even less as New Orleans
situation becomes ever more precarious. This may not seem like much, but it
makes a tremendous difference to the final figure in a
risk/cost-benefit analysis.
All this represents a failure of society's, of our
government's, task of identifying problems and organizing
resources towards solution. It is an indication that some of the
nations fundamental priorities have gone astray. Large scale community
wide projects, particular for the public safety, such as defending
major urban areas inhabitants against disaster - this is why
governments exist. I've read some articles that suggested, that
the inundation of New Orleans was too much, on too large a scale to be
seriously contemplated. Too expensive too entrenched a problem to guard
against, evacuating too complex to organize. The costs of recovering
too immense to be imagined. I've read that there is super-fund
site (a special federal category of toxic waste site) in downtown New
Orleans. It's been soaking in water for a week. Information like this
lends credence to the idea that the disaster that happened, while not
unforeseen, had an ability to defeat practical consideration.
There was a failure to react in the face of immanent
catastrophe. A hesitation, an unpreparedness, a blase attitude
when decisions had to be made on natures timetable, not mans. The speed
at which water flows, a hurricane move; hours not days. Here was
crisis, a threat to human well-being, human life. The human ingenuity
of extreme moments, which can produce extraordinary efforts to create
order in the face of yawning chaos, was not seen for days. Arnold
Toynbee had an idea in his mid century work "a Study of History" that
moderate adversity will prompt a culture to new heights while extreme
adversity will paralyze or break it. With no solid institutional
back-bone no leadership
AlterNet: What's Bush Got To Do With It?, it was difficult for a response to coalesce
The Gulf Between Rhetoric and Reality. The institutional backbone should have been government
Newsview: Politicians Failed Storm Victims - AP.
At the local level it was seen there is a difference between ordering
an evacuation and having one happen. Aside from transportation problems
(studies had identified what portion of New Orleans residents did not
have access to automobiles). No one seems to have asked about the
alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals or the merely ornery, anti-social
and non-cooperative who would not leave. Training exercises which are
where the various levels of first responders (for whom it is practice
not theory) learn their roles, learn who they interact with, and
identify coordination problems. These across the nation have
tended to be focused on terrorism scenarios. Apparently in 2000 and
2004 such exercises that dealt with storms were held but did not include levees failing in
their scripts. The extremity of the situation overwhelmed local police
fire and rescue departments.
At the Federal level as many have commented on bureaucratic
reorganization seems to have hamstrung FEMA by folding it into the
Dept. of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Screw-Up - What is the Bush administration doing? By Tim Naftali and saddling it with the burden of being a patronage outpost
Destroying FEMA.
Many critical projects were said to be starved of funding to feed the
war in Iraq. This is unlikely to be disproved by facts. On NPRs Weekend
Edition a person being interviewed complained that on FEMA's first list
of authorized emergency organizations new and untested "faith-based"
humanitarian subcontractors seemed to have displaced many regular and
experienced ones (she did say it was quickly expanded, thereafter). As well two thirds of the national guard not just in
Louisiana, but in Texas Mississippi, and Alabama are out of
country. these national guard troops traditionally a Governors
main line of defense in restoring order also represent significant
portions of police and fire departments in many municipalities affected.
What worked: the success of the National Guards and the U S
military when they arrived on the scene in sufficient numbers. These
are remarkably efficient and robust instituions. This underscores the
need that existed for a national response. Our federal system jumps
from national to states, then to county and municipal. Only about half the
states are large enough to qualify as regional entities with multiple
major municipal areas. Katrina's hurricaine force winds spanned over
200 miles wide and spread across the coastlines of three states. The
Multi state assistance compact was created specifically to deal with
such phenomenon, Though in the moment of emergency it being a
cooperative program, there was confusion and hesitation in invoking it.
There was a particular failure of technology in the collapse of the telecommunication grid, which was surprising fragile
Communications Networks Fail Disaster Area Residents.
Microwave telephony was more robust, power for cell phones was its weak
link. Consumer internet dependant on electrical power as well as phone
or DSL lines was not a factor in the affected areas which seemed
starved for information throughout the week, though it did play a role
in disseminating infornmation to and from the periphery (first rule of
hurricanes, buy batteries).
The disaster also revealed to the whole world America's failure to deal with poverty and racism
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | New Orleans crisis shames Americans.
A great deal has been said about the implicit deap and embedded racism,
not only in how the response has organized itself in fits and starts,
but more in the the weight of the impact falling among the social
classes
Anger rises among Mississippi's poor after Katrina and color line
Katrina's Unequal Toll.
One of the least but most telling incidents were the book-end comments
by the President in Mississippi talking in light upbeat tones about he
will sit on the porch of good ol' boy Trent Lotts house - when it gets
rebuilt. And Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Speaker of the house, questioning
why anyone would think that New Orleans was going to be rebuilt
Denny Hastert's Dark Calculus.
In the middle of last week John Edwards wrote a post on Josh
Marshall's still somewhat new community site Talking Points Memo Cafe
(TPM Cafe). It was a reprise of his main campaign theme
Two Americas- John Edwards - TPM Cafe.
In the comments to the post someone noted that salient feature of
wealth in this society is the extent to which at both extremes it is
largely hidden - invisible. To which I would add distant. Beyond the
reach of the middle class of bureaucratic mangers, and law enactors to
change easily. There are those who welcome this who welcome the burden
lifted by invisibility of poverty, the clock of vast wealth, and the
ease with which both can be forgotten.
There is a failure that can be seen in our fundamental
approach to nature. To always attempt to subdue or defeat nature to
treat it as the an-ethical to our progress. Entropy is the dissapation
of order and energy. It is the philosophical point against which
mankinds energy is directed. Nature is seen as, at best, the rival of
mankind against entropy, and at worst the face of chaos itself. Nature
has never been regarded by the American charactor as an ally, but as a
challenge, an affront.
There is hope through the failure. The media lately the
laughable shadow of a free press, seems to have rediscovered its
mandate and purpose
The Rebellion of the Talking Heads.
The political culture will not be able soon to pretend it does not know
the extent of the United States enduring problems
OUR OPINIONS An open letter to the President. A key difference
between this and 11 Sep.t 2001. Is the lack of a role for
manichaean good and evil, and subsequant political use in removing the
problem from the constructive realm of human affairs. It will
lead to a deeper more honest understanding of ourselves. We may
rediscover the Organizing priniciple of a true community. One of the
last things I read on this before starting to write this was David
Brooks second column on this (first was
The Storm After the Storm) NYT column on Sunday
The Bursting Point - New York Times:
"The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you
protect the vulnerable - was trampled[.]" I agree David, but why wait
til there is a crisis?
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Sunday, September 4, 2005
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Daddy Yankee is Globalism
This I decided while watching Pepsi Musica over the last few
weeks. Globalism is about flows. Flows across borders and boundaries
and oceans. To a banker it's about the flow of funds, transactions. To
a Hollywood mogul or committees that make such decisions these days
it's about whatever set of intangibles (not that they believe that they are intangible) will make people spend money
to watch Transporter ii in Lichtenstien, Uzbechestan, Balikpappan and
every point in between. To Karen Hughes (and Martha Bayles) it's about
reminding people everywhere, but particularly in the arab world, that
America is about spreading freedom. Martha Bayles wrote a column about this in the
Washington Post's Sunday outlook section last week
Now Showing: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Americans. If anyone remembers she wrote a book (which I read at the time) called Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music.
Which was dedicated to the proposition that while some pop culture music was
life affirming, much of it was nihilistic and life denying. I never saw
that her thesis ever got beyond taste, but I guess its all a matter of
subjective aesthetics. Lastly; globalism is going to be Daddy Yankee on
the inevitable European tour (after the US "who's your daddy" tour,
singing reaggeton to Germans.
I had a hit on my referer logs sometime last week:
search=Karla+blogs+pepsi musica... or something along those
lines. Karla Blogs? Well I can't say I'm surprised. I like the
show. I don't understand a word of it, but it's a tightly put together
well paced show. Karla has one of the effusive personalities in all
television. Up there with Ty Pennington. It's a music show, You don't
have to understand the language to appreciate a good song. When Karla
interviews a singer or musicians it's easy enough to tell if they're
sincere, or assholes. Occasionally you see characters who seem to like
to talk about themselves, but seemed bored or uninterested taking
about their music. Music flows across cultures easily - it's a
very global medium. Being someone who likes rock and roll genre songs I've taken to the band Natalia Y La Forquetina.
JD Natasha is similar. I'm at a loss as to why Natalia Y Forquentina
isn't being played on the college stations I listen to, WMUC or WZBC. I
guess they might have to play Interpol one less time or something.
Verizon is trying to hawk a new line of cell phones n' network on the
selling point of being able to view the Shakira (who no longer needs
introduction) video to La Tortura over them. I should coco. Can't beat
that voice on the song No though.
I have determined that the singer Thalia has a last name, it's Sodi (born ThalÌa Ariadna Sodi Miranda) She has a page of her own in Wikpedia
Thalia Sodi - Wikipedia.
She's been singing profesionally since she was six. Was in a Mexican
production of Grease, is she reprising this with the new song Amar sin
ser Amada. It says in the wiki that she has her own brand of
Hersheys chocolate La DulcerÌa ThalÌa. I wonder where one goes to get a
hold of some. Tran likes chocolate.
10:56:45 AM ;;
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