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Levitt on Bennett
Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt defends Bill Bennett up to a point but concludes: There is one thing I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn’t believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can’t have it both ways. Andrew Sullivan adds: [B]y reflexively relating race
Mahavishnu, Metheny and me
Never got around to posting these. (w. McLaughlin Oct. ’03; w. Metheny Dec. ’04)
Right-wing Freudian slip watch
From today’s NY Times: ”But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down,” said [William] Bennett, author of ”The Book of Virtues.” Read it again. He “knows that it’s true.” Could
Links to the latest
Here‘s a letter of mine in this week’s Village Voice (scroll down). And here‘s my ecstatic review of Keith Jarrett’s solo concert at Carnegie Hall on 9/26.
Antiwar angst
Marc Cooper’s on the money about the hijacking of the antiwar movement by the “extremist loonies” of International ANSWER, a front for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (itself a schism of the Workers World Party). The impact of these “fundamentalist-Leninist grouplets” (Cooper’s term) is not negligible. They dominate the C-SPAN coverage (of the 9/24 D.C. march, for instance) with
And another…
David T of Harry’s Place has written about my Atzmon piece here. Many thanks!
Oliver Kamm citation
I’m very pleased to report that UK blogger and columnist Oliver Kamm has written a post about my Jazz Times article on Gilad Atzmon. Kamm, a powerful critic of left anti-Semitism, has written about Atzmon extensively. I’m honored to be featured in his pages.
Goings On
Now playing–Jack DeJohnette’s new electronica project The Ripple Effect (Golden Beams) –Alarm Will Sound, Acoustica (Cantaloupe): New music ensemble does Aphex Twin, acoustically. Reminds me of the Ensemble Modern’s Zappa disc, Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions (RCA Red Seal). Now writingA piece for Slate (my first for them), on the subtler, less conspicuous impact of hip-hop on new acoustic jazz.