Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Joni Mitchell's Hissing of Summer Lawns

Susan wrote, "I'm so depressed by the do nothing Dems, write something about music tonight if possible, please."

Okay, but I'm not doing a review here. I've got two reviews I'm tossing in my head now. I'm not going to touch on those in the least.

One CD I was in the mood for today was Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Background, the album didn't do well in the mid-seventies. It wasn't a commercial flop and had a nice sales run in its day but it wasn't Court & Spark (her previous CD -- I'm having trouble with Blogger/Blogspot tonight and no more titles will appear in italics in this entry). Critically, it was really crucified. Joni was taken to task for the photo of herself in a bikini. As she pointed out, she is swimming in the photo. A number of photos were more explicit in the day (and Joni was naked -- backside view -- on For The Roses). There was also criticism of the songs on the album and that included some saying she was writing like an inhabitant of suburbia, a very comfortable in suburbia. This is Prince's favorite Joni Mitchell album and it has always had its supporters.

Warning, Rebecca (Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude) and I are both having problems with Blogger/Blogspot tonight. The message that just went up is that only old Blogger/Blogspot is effect -- non-beta sites. That's crap. I called Rebecca and said, "I can't use the italics, I can't do much of anything and now I can't even type." She was having the same problem. It's Blogger/Blogspot. Right now, she can't even log in. (We both agreed to log out, shut down our computers and try to get back in. We did, but I can get in and she just gets an error message -- over and over.)

Due to problems, this will be shorter than planned. But back to Joni.

Joni's offered two theories. They don't conflict with one another. 1) She thinks that it was the build-you-up-to-tear-you-down process. She was riding high, time for the press to come after her. 2) She wasn't writing first person confessional songs on Hissing.

On the second one, that lyrics could offend wouldn't work with more artists as a reason because most people don't even listen to lyrics -- or listen closely. But Joni's base hangs on her every word so I find that as plausible as the tearing down.

I like Hissing. But I have my own reason for why it was less successful than I think it could have been. I think the two reasons Joni offers play into it.

I also think the arrangements are shit poor.

It seems like everyone is playing the same damn note. It gives the music this 'wall' feel (similar to wall of sound but it's just one note so it's not a wall of sound). It mono-chromatic. The rhythms never bothered me. "Shades of Scarlett Conquering" and other songs were on the money. Joni's vocals were strong. But, damn, were those instruments or the Mormon Tab. Choir?

Covering Joni's songs as her backup band on Miles of Aisles, the band was good. The same basic lineup with new material? They sound like a bad Carole King album. Where there's no time or care taken with arrangements. Along with the arrangements, the instrument choices don't help. Would it have killed to have one track on the album with a piano that wasn't being drowned out by an electric piano or electric keyboard?

I've never had a problem with the song writing. The songs are very strong. I have wished Joni would revist the entire project as a live album with real arrangements.

I don't think it's a bad album but the drone (that's what it sounds like, beez buzzing -- and that may fit with the concept that on a weekend day, everyone turns on their sprinklers and you hear the sounds of The Hissing of Summers Lawns) is just too much for me to listen to most days. I have to be in the mood for Hissing. If I'm not, it's a really bad musical trip.

"Bar & Grill," the piano work on that, there's nothing like that here. It's a drone. How many instruments can play the same note? It feels like a competition. Again, this is Prince's favorite album by Joni so if you've never heard it, that alone is reason to check it out.

This was it for me and Joni. I didn't follow the jazz trip. I didn't come back until the reviews for Wild Things Run Fast. I bought that on vinyl and honestly thought I'd been ripped off. I still do. I don't have it on CD. (I do have Hissing.) "Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody" was the only thing that moved me. (I bought Hits to avoid getting Wild Things on CD.) To me the praise for Wild Things was a response to Joni returning to the pop field. That really is an unlistenable album to me.

But that's my opinion and someone may disagree. I think her two other 80s album are much stronger, Chalkmarks in a Rainstorm and Dog Eat Dog. The latter, I think, is brilliant and up to the level of her strongest work. For years, I never found anyone who agreed with me on that. Before I met C.I., when we were just exchanging e-mails, I think I used that as a test, what did C.I. think about Dog Eat Dog? When C.I. wrote back that Dog Eat Dog was an underrated classic, I knew we'd get along. For me, Joni's strength returned on that album and there's been nothing since that I haven't been able to listen to repeatedly. I really love Dog Eat Dog. That is a classic to me. It's also a CD, that like Stevie Wonder's Talking Book, is pretty much always playing, year after year, on my stereo.

Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, April 10, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Sara Rich continues to tell her daughter's story, the same Congress that won't end the war doesn't listen to the story of Suzanne Swift, and the lies that led to an illegal war are explored.


Starting with the final section of Robert Knight's "Knight Report" on yesterday's Flashpoints:

Meanwhile, there's little indication from London or Washington that the occupation will end any time soon. In London a confidential planning document drawn up by the Defence Ministry, called the "Operational Tour Plot," was obtained by the London Telegeraph which today disclosed that British troops will be serving in Iraq and throughout the Arab gulf at least until 2012. And finally in Washington, Congressional Democrats made it perfectly clear they have no serious intention of bringing the war in Iraq to an end before they can capitalize on it in time for the 2008 presidential elections. After a week's recess and backtracking on the non-binding and loophole laden timeline legislation which permits the Bush administration to continue the war in until the next presidential term Democratic leaders retreated even further than they did during the legislative debate. Among the retreaters Senator Carl Levin, the chair of the Armed Services Committee told ABC's This Week that, "We're not going to vote to cut funding." He said that after a veto "There's a number of options. Either we can keep the benchmarks part of the bill without saying that the troops must begin to come back and if that doesn't work what we will leave will be benchmarks for instance which would require the president to certify to the American people that the Iraqis are meeting the benchmarks for political settlement which they have set themselves." And that's some of the news of this Monday April 9, 2007 from exile in New York, I'm Robert Knight for Flashpoints.

Flashpoints is archived at its own website and at KPFA (which right now is having archive problems and has archived nothing since early Monday morning) and airs live from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Monday through Friday online and over the airwaves of KPFA, KFCF, KPFB and other stations. (A full transcription of Robert Knight's "Knight Report" appears in Hilda's Mix today.) Knight was speaking, first, of the news from the UK. Sean Rayment (Telegraph of London) notes approximately half "of the country's armed services have now served in Iraq since the war began in March 2003" and that the revelations that UK forces will be in Iraq through 2012 and that report is "in marked contrast to a statement made by Tony Blair in Feburary giving the impression that British troops would remain in Ira for less than two years." On the earlier issue of the Democrats caving, as Joshua Frank (CounterPunch) notes, "The Democrats may not have enough votes to overturn a Bush veto, but they certainly have enough to filibuster the war-funding bill, which at this point is the only way to stop this god-awful disaster. One brave Democrat could take a stand, filibuster, and 40 more senators could then abstain from breaking the filibuster. That is all it would take. Bush would then have to be the one to compromise and produce a plan that was acceptable to the 41 Senate Democrats who want to end the war. But of course, we are more likely to see Dick Cheney drinking margaritas with Cindy Sheehan on the White House lawn before we'd witness this scenario play out." Tabassum Zakaria and Richard Cowan (Reuters) report that Bully Boy has "invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House next week" to discuss the non-binding, toothless Congressional measure. That is the same measure he has stated he intends to veto and that Senator Carl Levin says, if he vetos, Democrats will immediately rush to fall in line (no power of the purse for Levin).

From the madness of the governments
To the vengeance of the sea
Everything is eclipsed
By the shape of destiny
So love me now
Hell is coming
Could you do it now?
Hell is here
Little soldier, little insect
You know war, it has no heart
It will kill you in the sunshine
Or just as happily in the dark
-- "No One Would Riot For Less" written by Conor Oberst, off Bright Eyes' Cassadaga

Turning to the topic of war resistance, Paul Rockwell (CounterPunch) offers an open letter to Major General Charles Jacoby Jr. where he reviews the court-martial of Ehren Watada. In June 2006, Watada became the first officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. In February of this year, he became the first officer to be court-martialed for refusing to deploy. Rockwell notes that the court-martial ended in a mistrial over the objection of the defense, argues that "now is a good time to drop all the charges against the Lieutenant, to bring closure to a trial that, in my opinion, should never have taken place" and concludes that "history will vindicate the courage of Lt. Ehren Watada." Pretrial motions are currently scheduled for May 20th through 21st and the court-martial for July 16th. Watada is represented by the Seattle based Carney Bradley Spellman and his attorneys are Kenneth Kagan and James Lobsenz.



Ehren Watada is part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Joshua Key, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Dean Walcott, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum. Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.


At a rally to show support for Ehren Watada, Sara Rich (AfterDowningStreet.org) writes, she and her daughter Suzanne Swift turned out to show their support and Swift asked, "Mom, where are the kids my age? Where is my generation?" Rich goes on to tell her daughter's story, sexually abused and harassed for the apparent 'crime' of thinking a woman could serve in the military, Swift was betrayed by the very system she attempted to defend. As Rich explains, her daughter did not self-check out because of an objection to the war but to save herself when the military refused to do so. Rich: "Confronting imminent redeployment she went AWOL. Later the Army would contend that she went AWOL because of her mother's political beliefs. I only wished it was that. If it was because of my political beliefs she never would have gone to Iraq the first place. Then they tried to say it was because of her own anti war beliefs. That would have been a dream come true. But the truth was that my daughter went AWOL out of pure fear; fear of what her command had done to her in the first deployment and rejection of being treated like a 'deployment whore' again. This was not a decision it was a reaction."

Though Suzanne Swift's reaction was perfectly normal, even before you get to the fact that she suffers from PTSD, not only was she abandoned by the military command that damn well should have prevented what she went through, the US Congress -- all those brave talking Senators, male and female -- sat on their collective asses which apparently kept their lips from moving. The military conducted a whitewash investigation (that still found validity and confirmation in some of Swift's charges), her offer was sign a paper saying she lied or face a court-martial. Swift was court-martialed, stripped of her rank, sentenced to 30 days and then placed back in the same system that not only did not refuse to ensure her safety, but failed to after she sought help. To repeat, Congress sat on its collective ass. That's Hillary Clinton, that's Carl Levin, that's Barbara Boxer, that's Russ Feingold, that's Susan Collins, that's Mr. uber-goodness Joe Lieberman.

Rich concludes, "It is amazing to me how much we have to be thankful to the Army for. They tried to break my daughter down and shut her up, and in the process created a strong advocate for women around the world. Imagine if they had done the right thing and protected from MLester in the first place or given her an immediate medical discharge when our attorney contacted Ft. Lewis right after she went AWOL and was diagnosed with PTSD. How simple and right it could have been. But the US military did not understand what they were doing or Suzanne's fortitude." A number of Congressional members who are also attempting to campaign for president have issued the "If only we knew then what we know now . . ." junk to excuse their support for an illegal war. What's their excuse for doing nothing about Suzanne Swift? She should have received an honorable discharge. Congress should have immediately initiated hearings into what women serving in Iraq are actually having to endure. It's not too late for that nor is it too late to push for Swift to get the honorable discharge she more than deserves.

Rich offers that the people her daughter's age are waking up to the realities and will be showing up at protests in greater numbers. In Iraq yesterday, hundreds of thousands participated in a Najaf rally against the occupation of the nation by foreign forces. Hiba Dawood (Free Speech Radio News) reported by speaking with Iraqis (an apparently novel and new thing to do when you consider how few others bothered to do so) taking part in the protest. One man noted 4 years have passed since the occupation of Iraq and what happened? Hundreds of thousands were killed, hundreds of thousands were wounded and arrested. They humiliate the Iraqi homes every day. The Constitution says that the Iraqi homes are protected but they invade homes anytime they want. We have to always remember Abu Ghraib and the abuses that has happened there including the sexual abuse against Iraqi women and the killing of those Iraqi women with their families." Ahmed Ali states: "The demands in this demonstration are different than the ones we had in 2005, for example. Then people demanded the condemnation of Saddm Hussein and called for the total and immediate departure of the occupation forces. Today, we demand that there should be at least a timetable set up for troops to leave. Our other demand is that want people in the occupying countries in the removal of their military forces from Iraq."


Following yesterday's cry for foreign forces to leave, the war drug on with all the violence that entails.

Bombings?

AFP reports: "A woman veiled in black and strapped with explosives blew herself up outside a police station in Iraq on Tuesday, killing 16 people, many of them volunteering to joing the polic eforce" in Muqdadiyah. CNN reports a Baghdad bombing targeting Baghdad Univeristy that killed at least six college students and left 11 more injured. CBS and AP report that "a rocket slammed into a schoolyard basketball court, killing a 6-year-old boy. AP Television News videotape showed children's backpacks and books still open on classroom desks, covered with shattered glass and debris. Blood was pooled on the dusty tile floor." -- the count given is 17 wounded. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports two other mortar attacks in Baghdad that resulted in one death and four wounded.


Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) notes an Iraqi soldier was shot in Kirkuk and, in Baghdad, an ongoing clash between Iraqis and US & Iraqi forces has left one Iraqi soldier dead and four injured and that "an eyewitness" says "one American reconnaissance aircraft was shot down." CNN notes that the US military states that "minor damage" was done to a helicopter which did not, according to the US military, crash.

Corpses?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 9 corpses discovered in Baghdad.

Today the US military announced: "Three MND-B Soldiers died and another was wounded when an improvised explosive device and secondary explosion detonated near their patrol in a southeastern section of the Iraqi capital April 9. " And they announced: "A Soldier assigned to Multi-National Force-West died Monday while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." On the tenth day of April, ICCC is reporting that 45 US service membrs have died in Iraq so far this month. 3292 since the start of the illegal war. 3292 dead. Why?

The mythical mushroom cloud that Condi and Bully Boy pushed? The 16 words in the State of the Union 2003 address (a Constitutional duty of the office of president): "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." That lie was explored today by Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!), La Repubblica's Carlo Bonini and the Washington Post's Peter Eisner -- excerpt:


Amy Goodman: So we're back to the day that President Bush made his statement within the State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's attempt to get uranium from Africa.

Peter Eisner, what role did the CIA play in this statement?

Peter Eisner: The CIA actually had attempted to block the statement by President Bush relating uranium purchases in Niger. And, in fact, three months before the State of the Union message, on October 7, 2002 -- strangely, the same day that Rocco Martino handed over the documents to Elisabetta Burba -- President Bush was scheduled to deliver a speech in Cincinnati, and the draft of that speech said pretty much what he ended up saying in the State of the Union message. That was, that the British had found that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium in Africa. The CIA was given routinely a copy of that text in advance and argued that that sentence about uranium should be removed. There was quite an argument between the lower CIA officials and White House staff, including Stephen Hadley, at the time the assistant National Security Advisor, now the National Security Advisor, once Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State. Finally, George Tenet, the head of the CIA, had to intercede on October 7 and demand that the White House remove the sentence describing uranium purchases in Niger. It was quite a dust-up. As a result of that, the White House, burned, decided that in the interim it would not provide advanced text of presidential speeches to the CIA to avoid having to withdraw information that it didn't want to withdraw. So, the day before the State of the Union message, no one at the CIA had seen the text of the State of the Union message, until the night before. Someone just mildly passed a draft text to George Tenet during a meeting, which was not the normal procedure for vetting a document. And basically everyone at the CIA was surprised when President Bush uttered that statement, which had already been excised three months earlier. The response by the White House staff was, "Whoops! We forgot."

Amy Goodman: And yet, what happened? This was still before the President's address?

Peter Eisner: Well, in effect, George Tenet, the head of the CIA, the day before, received the text, handed it off to an aide, and nobody took a look at it. It could have been stopped, but usually, you know, days before, as the text is being prepared, written, analyzed, someone would look at it. In this case, they didn't, although the Bush administration did have allies elsewhere in the CIA that were kind of giving them cover to be able to make this statement, while a vast majority, I would say, of the intelligence community in the United States did not believe for an instant that Iraq was trying to buy uranium or that Iraq was trying to restart its nuclear program.

Carlo Bonini is the co-author of Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror. Peter Eisner is the co-author of The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Cases for War in Iraq. Amy Goodman is the co-author of Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back and she will be speaking at Faneuil Hall in Boston next Monday (April 16th) with Howard Zinn -- event begins at 7:00 pm.
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