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An inconvenient massacre
It’s popular to beat up on the NYT’s Thomas Friedman, but he hits on something important in today’s column, “Swift-Boated By Bin Laden” (TimesSelect). His point: the Bush administration never hesitates to launch vicious p.r. attacks against Democrats but is curiously mute on Qaeda-inspired atrocities such as the anti-Yazidi attacks of August 14, which killed over 500 men, women and
The week live
Quick props to alto saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio, who came through Philly on Wednesday, August 22 in support of his new Playscape CD Unspoken Dialogue. The album features major players like Kenny Werner and Ben Street, none of whom were on hand at Chris’s Jazz Cafe. But the quintet was quite capable — particularly the trumpeter Paul Tynan, whose time feel
The week on disc (1)
At the risk of biting off more than I can chew, I’m going to start this little series to supplement my monthly Six Picks. The volume of music coming my way is just overwhelming — a lot really good, some extraordinary, too much of it getting filed away without comment. I figured it’s time to step up the level of
Vietnam syndrome
It crops up in the strangest ways, doesn’t it? In 2004 Christopher Hitchens was berating Democrats and liberals for linking Iraq and Vietnam. Now it’s Bush himself who insists on the connection. People are picking apart Bush’s historical analogy, I’m glad to see. I’ll just add one bit of good news: at least Bush wasn’t president when that war was
500 killed, 1500 wounded
That is the newly revised toll, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, of the coordinated and genocidal attack on the Yazidi community of northern Iraq that occurred on August 14. Over 1000 homes were leveled in the blasts. And U.S. politicians continue to travel to Iraq and report back that they felt very safe. Well, that’s what really counts.
“Intifada NYC”
To rehearse the details of this controversy: a Brooklyn organization called Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media (AWAAM) printed t-shirts with the slogan “Intifada NYC.” Debbie Almontaser, as principal of the soon-to-open Khalil Gibran International Academy, a Brooklyn middle school with no connection to AWAAM, defended the use of the slogan when asked about it by reporters. She
RIP Max Roach
In researching a forthcoming piece for the Inquirer on saxophonist Odean Pope, I happen to be listening to a lot of Max Roach — right now, in fact, Pope’s unaccompanied solo from the 1984 Soul Note release Scott Free is blasting in my headphones. Roach’s quartet with Pope and Cecil Bridgewater was some of the first jazz I heard, in
On Alison Krauss
My review of Alison Krauss & Union Station, with special guest Jerry Douglas on Dobro, in today’s Inquirer.