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Obama responds…
…to Reverend Wright with an ironclad denunciation and impeccable moral force. Good. This was absolutely necessary.
CD reviews
I have some CD reviews in the May 2008 Jazz Times: Brian Blade Fellowship, Season of Changes (Verve) Andrew Rathbun, Affairs of State (SteepleChase) Uri Caine, The Classical Variations (Winter & Winter) The Quincy Jones ABC/Mercury Big Band Jazz Sessions (Mosaic)
Supreme Court: voter suppression a-ok!
About a week ago I attended the launch event for the Hip-Hop Team Vote campaign here in Philly. Spearheaded by Russell Simmons (see my cellphone pic at left), Ben Chavis and others, the campaign’s goal is not only to get young voters out to the polls, but to turn them into voting activists — registering their immediate and extended family
Back to life, back to reality
I’m back from a few days in Florida with an unreliable web connection, so I’m just getting the news about the passing of Jimmy Giuffre. Darcy has the best blog roundup, of course. Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but one of the least discussed items in the Giuffre/Bley/Swallow catalog is Fly Away Little Bird, recorded in 1992
Hillary on Iran
John Aravosis gets it right: So in the space of 12 hours, Hillary has twice suggested that she’d nuke Iran, but now her staff is saying that she didn’t mean to imply that she would. Maybe she’s just 60 years old and tired, like her husband said she was when she repeatedly lied about Bosnia for four months. So long
“Message force multipliers”
I’m heading out of town for a few days, so I’ll hit pause with a link to David Barstow’s phenomenal piece on the Pentagon-run disinformation campaign that has infected nearly all mainstream coverage of the Iraq war. Of course, the story of these self-serving con men posing as “military analysts” on FOX News, CNN, ABC and even on the Op-Ed
The week on disc (16)
In case you missed the last one… Marilyn Mazur & Jan Garbarek, Elixir (ECM) Scott Robinson, Forever Lasting: The Compositions of Thad Jones (Arbors) John Tchicai/Jonas Muller/Nikolaj Munch-Hansen/Kresten Osgood, Coltrane in Spring (ILK) Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, Holon (ECM) Vijay Iyer, Tragicomic (Sunnyside) Dave Douglas’s Keystone, Moonshine (Greenleaf)
More China-bashing please
My feelings toward Hillary Clinton and her campaign couldn’t be a lot dimmer, but I have to credit her for an anti-China line so firm that it caused one of her advisors to quit. Richard Baum of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies accuses Hillary of taking “the low road” on the issue, but she’s done exactly the opposite. On the