dev

16
Feb

The week on disc (37)

In case you missed the last one… Gerry Hemingway & Thomas Lehn, Tom & Gerry: Kinetics (Auricle) Tom Warrington Trio, The Mountain (Jazz Compass) John O’Gallagher Trio, Dirty Hands (Clean Feed) Alex Cline, Continuation (Cryptogramophone) Gerald Cleaver/William Parker/Craig Taborn, Farmers By Nature (Aum Fidelity) The October Trio + Brad Turner, Looks Like It’s Going to Snow (Songlines)

13
Feb

Freedom of speech

Johann Hari is right.

13
Feb

Arts funding II

A good outcome, reports Anastasia…

13
Feb

A horror

Alison Des Forges, Africa specialist with Human Rights Watch, was among those lost on the plane that went down outside Buffalo. She was 66. Her work was heroic, her death a calamity not only for her family but for the worldwide human rights community. [HRW’s tribute here.] I’ve also just received notice that Gerry Niewood, veteran saxophonist, is among the

Read more

12
Feb

A Pashtun demo

This, via Terry Glavin, is something remarkable: TORONTO – Pashtun-Canadians of Pakistan and Afghanistan origin are organizing an anti-Taliban rally to protest the ongoing massacre of Pashtun people in Northern Pakistan by the Taliban. In our first ever anti-Taliban rally in Canada we are protesting outside Queen’s Park to highlight the unreported “Genocide of 52 million Pashtuns” by the Taliban

Read more

11
Feb

On Felipe Salles/MOPDTK

My previews of Felipe Salles and Mostly Other People Do the Killing, in the current Philadelphia Weekly.

10
Feb

Helen Thomas, albatross

[Cross-posted at Z Word.] I take no pleasure from the fact that right-wing pundits are lashing Helen Thomas over her two-part question to President Obama last night. And yet Thomas deserves to be upbraided. The fact that she’s held up by liberals as a paragon of courage is an embarrassment. Drifting further toward the fringe every day, she certainly doesn’t

Read more

9
Feb

Arts funding

Efforts are afoot to deny any stimulus funding to arts organizations. Americans for the Arts has advocacy resources. Darcy has a roundup of commentary.