David Adler
“Dying to Win”
I recently finished Robert A. Pape’s very interesting book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House). It’s refreshingly data-driven and non-ideological, if a bit out of date — the paperback edition is 2005, and news moves fast, in Iraq and elsewhere. One of Pape’s arguments is that suicide terrorists, and the militant organizations that deploy them,
Melanie Morgan is evil
Speaking of insufferable demagogues, on last night’s Newshour the ultra-right radio host and activist Melanie Morgan “debated” Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org, a group of antiwar veterans heavily involved in lobbying the Democrats on troop withdrawal legislation. Soltz had facts, rationality and decency on his side. Morgan attacked him personally, interrupted, called him anti-American and an al-Qaeda stooge. (Her views on
My aching back
I had some other things to sound off about, but while I was filing away CDs this morning, five of my shelves collapsed, one atop the other, in a chain reaction. I’d say nearly a thousand CDs, arranged alphabetically in thin plastic gatefolds, came crashing down around me. Like 52-card pickup. I spent the rest of the day realphabetizing letters
Penn’s sanctimony, Maher’s frivolity
Bill Maher’s HBO program this past Friday was excruciating. Garry Shandling, his brain scattered and his face full of botox, contributed nothing. Harold Ford, Jr., head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, was not there for a fight, and so yielded far too readily to the insufferable demagogue Sean Penn. Unable to get over himself for a fraction of a
Turkey in crisis
My friend Yigal Schleifer has a report at the Eurasianet website on Turkey’s current political crisis. Protesters clashed with police today in Taksim Square and the unrest spread to Istiklal Cadessi, where Yigal lives, and where I stayed during my visit last year. His neighborhood was unaffected, but he “got a good whiff of pepper gas” while watching events unfold
Six Picks: May 2007
My monthly list of recommended CDs, as published in All About Jazz-New York, May 2007: David Binney/Edward Simon, Océanos (Criss Cross) Aydin Esen, Light Years (Extinction) Human Feel, Galore (Skirl) James Falzone, The Sign and the Thing Signified (Allos) Lionel Loueke, Virgin Forest (Obliqsound) Mike Reed’s Loose Assembly, Last Year’s Ghost (482 Music)
Zanzibar Blue, etc.
My review of vocalist Melissa Walker with Christian McBride’s trio, in today’s Inquirer. This was the final big engagement at Zanzibar Blue, one of Philly’s top clubs. I have to add a word about Ari Hoenig’s unbelievably tight group “Punk Bop,” which played Chris’s Jazz Cafe the same night. Hoenig on drums, Joel Frahm on tenor, Gilad Hekselman on guitar
Strained metaphor dept.
This is a few days old, but Edward Wong’s NYT analysis of the political machinations of Moktada Al-Sadr builds up to the following line: He has become a great improviser, the Miles Davis of the war. Wong in no way means to glorify Sadr or validate his positions. But coming on the heels of Gilad Atzmon’s latest call to jihad,