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The current PW
I haven’t been in the habit of linking to the short previews and CD capsule reviews of mine that appear regularly in Philadelphia Weekly. Putting up links to these short, ephemeral pieces of writing has always struck me as just too cumbersome on a weekly basis. But I’ve changed my mind. Although I’m preparing to exit Philly, I’m pleased to
Harry’s Place silenced
Jenna Delich, a member of Britain’s University and College Union (UCU), is part of a small UCU faction favoring a boycott of Israeli institutions and individuals. The other day on the UCU activist discussion list she circulated a link concerning the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a link that directed readers to the neo-Nazi website of David Duke. “No comment necessary.
Project Censored PS
Peter Phillips of Project Censored has responded to my critique, in which I point out that the director of an entity nominally devoted to fighting censorship actually supports censorship, as long as it’s done in Cuba. You’ll find Phillip’s largely boilerplate response, which fails to engage any of the points I made, at the bottom of the original post. He
The week on disc (25)
In case you missed the last one… Glenn White, Sacred Machines (OA2): Smoking, evocative originals by the tenor saxophonist and a quintet (sometimes sextet). Produced by David Binney. The second horn is Jamie Baum’s flute — a refreshing twist. Roberta Piket, Gary Wang, Jeff Hirshfield and Patrick Hay play forcefully and beautifully. David Murray & Mal Waldron, Silence (Justin Time):
Fish on Rushdie, again
And another in an unintended series of remarks on censorship… In 2006, following the Danish cartoon controversy, Stanley Fish critiqued the liberal view of free speech and had scarcely a negative word to say about fanatics who were calling for the blood — literally — not just of cartoonists but also editors, writers and anyone else who offended them. I
The anti-Georgia consensus
Frank Rich, laying out the best line of attack against McCain, concludes with this: “Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?” Saakashvili is not a saint walking the earth, but he does not belong in the same
Herbert on Project Censored
While I’m on the subject of hypocrisy on censorship… I’m listening to There’s Me and There’s You, the forthcoming release by the Matthew Herbert Big Band. I like Herbert’s music; I’m intrigued by his process. His Chomskyite politics I can do without, although I agree with the statement on his album cover, which takes the form of a personnel list