David Adler
Ron Paul’s values
During primary season, some progressive-minded people flocked to Ron Paul, not only failing to note his extreme right-wing views, but greeting reports of those views with anger and ostrich-like denial. So it’s worth a mention that Paul has endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party for president. Baldwin is a militantly anti-choice, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-feminist, pro-gun nut. Again, Ron Paul has
Three articles
I have three articles in new/recent issues of Jazz Times: “Doubled Up” [pdf], on Chicago drummer Mike Reed. “Post-Pop” [pdf], on singer-songwriter Rebecca Martin. “Earn Your Keep: Jazz and the Lost Art of Apprenticeship” [pdf], in the 2008/09 Jazz Times Education Guide.
Roy’s purity
Novelist and activist Arundhati Roy, easily one of the world’s most overrated political thinkers, has no problem supporting the Iraqi insurgency, Maoist thugs in jungles of India, and Pakistan-backed militants in Kashmir. But she cannot bring herself to support Barack Obama. Somehow, some way, the Obama campaign will crawl on without her help.
On Message: Afghanistan
As I’ve remarked twice, the McCain-Palin camp has launched specious attacks on Obama for allegedly impugning American troops in Afghanistan, when Obama was in fact calling for increased American troops in Afghanistan. Palin went so far as to call Obama’s comments on civilian casualties “untrue.” So it’s interesting to read John Burns’s account of Afghan war policy in today’s NY
American racism today
John McCain: “I’m proud of the people who come to our rallies.”
The Real America
Sarah Palin in North Carolina: “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation.” The McCain campaign is trying to
Another Jazz Times letter
Once again, a reader attacks my July/August Jazz Times column on music and politics. Alan Embree of Hannibal, Missouri, writes: After reading David R. Adler’s Solo guest column [“Playing Changes for Change,” Aug. ’08] I debated whether to immediately cancel my subscription like I had done several years ago with Time magazine after tiring of the leftist rants of various writers