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Truth in labeling updates
1. Judeosphere reports on the flap over Mazin Qumsiyeh’s article in the Davos forum’s Global Agenda magazine calling for a total boycott of Israel. The Davos forum has renounced the article and chalked it up to an editorial oversight. What this NY Times account misses — and what Judeosphere does not — is that Qumsiyeh is the founder of Al
The Daily
The Daily Show’s two headlines on the UK-Russia espionage story, involving electronic equipment hidden in a fake rock: “Sly Stone” & “War on a Rock.” Jon Stewart’s comment on Pelosi, Reid and other Dems signing an “Honest Leadership” pledge for the cameras: “Apparently that ‘oath of office’ thing didn’t take.”
Human Rights 2006
Marc Cooper has a strong post about Human Rights Watch’s 2006 World Report. The report highlights Bush administration abuses, but also makes the case against Castro and Hugo Chavez, Harry Belafonte’s pal. In the comments, Michael Balter makes an excellent point: Those of us on the left have a particular responsibility to criticize the human rights violations of regimes like
Disc of the week
I’ve been doing cartwheels over Hip-Hop Essentials 1979-1991, Volume Five (Tommy Boy). Why? Because it leads off with “That’s the Joint” by the Funky 4 + 1 and “Freedom” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I taped these two singles off the radio (WKTU-FM) when I was 12, and I played them over and over and over again. With
The future of music…
or whatever…To quote ZZ Top: “She got legs / She knows how use ’em…” [Hat tip: Noah Baerman]
Writing and truth
The cover of the NYT Week in Review concerns James Frey’s memoir A Million Little Pieces, embellished to the point of fraudulence. Randy Kennedy explores the relativist public response to the fakery, noting that suspicion of the memoir genre stretches back at least to Montaigne. Indeed, in the final chapter of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing (Princeton U.
Best music writing/videos
Jason Gross of Perfect Sound Forever has a great music journalism roundup for 2005 here. [Via Artsjournal.com] And this page takes you to some incredible music videos (remember those?). [Via Phil DiPietro]
The duty to deliberate
Just finished three pretty intense days of jury service. My only previous one was a state trial in 1994, ending in acquittal. This was federal, ending in three guilty verdicts. One passage from the judge’s written charge to the jury stays in my mind: Each juror is entitled to his or her opinion, but you are required to exchange views