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Greens part two
Rosa Clemente, the hip-hop activist who is now Cynthia McKinney’s vice presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket, made an acceptance speech this weekend during which she offered unequivocal praise for the Weather Underground, Mutulu Shakur (currently serving a 60-year term for his involvement in the BLA’s notorious 1981 Brinks heist) and other supposed paragons of progressivism in America.
Make my day
The specifics of Obama’s alleged “move to the center” are complex, but I have to say I’m amused that lefties like Oregon artist Martha Shade, quoted in this NY Times piece, are abandoning Obama for the Green Party. (I say this as someone who voted for Nader in ’96 and ’00.) A person who hangs an “Occupation Is Terrorism” banner
The week on disc (21) – big band edition
In case you missed the last one… Evan Parker & the Transatlantic Art Ensemble, Boustrophedon (ECM) Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Song for Chico (Zoho) The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard (Planet Arts) Barry Romberg’s Random Access Large Ensemble, Existential Detective (Romhog) Keefe Jackson’s Project Project, Just Like This (Delmark, 2007) Bob Mintzer
To the five m-f boroughs
Feeling homesick for NY so thought I’d post this. [Hat tip Schrager.]
On Herbie
My review of Herbie Hancock’s recent Carnegie Hall show, online at Jazz Times.
Greenwald misreads Obama
Some very smart liberal bloggers are up in arms about Obama’s perceived move to the center — perhaps with some justification, although Glenn Greenwald’s beef with the Obama patriotism speech borders on dishonest: [Obama] defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the “the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties” for “attacking
Morocco reflections
Almost two years ago, a close friend enthusiastically recommended Paul Bowles’s 1955 novel The Spider’s House — set in Morocco during the struggle for independence from France — as a prescient commentary on Muslim attitudes toward the west (and vice versa), the quagmire in Iraq and so forth. Eager to read it on my recent return from Fes, I was
Video links
Finally got around to posting short YouTube vids from Istanbul, Suleimaniya and Dakar. Enjoy.