That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "No Soul To Save" from earlier tonight.
I'd written earlier this week about grabbing Diana Ross' LAST TIME I SAW HIM from C.I. to listen to and that resulted in several e-mails asking me about Diana's albums.
No, I have not heard all of her albums, sorry. Like most people, I know Diana from the hits. Now with the Supremes, she had 12 number ones alone,.30 songs went top 100 pop, 28 songs went top 100 R& B, 1 dance hit ("Someday We'll Be Together" 1990 remix went to number 7 on the dance chart) As a solo artist, 42 top 100 pop, 51 top 100 R&B, 29 top 100 AC and 27 top 100 dance. If you add that together, she's had 72 top 100 pop songs, 79 top 100 R & B songs, 29 top 100 AC and 28 top 100 dance.
So, yeah, that's a lot of songs to know even before you get to her albums.
The Diana Ross albums I knew before I became friends with C.I.?
REFLECTIONS with the Supremes and ANTHOLOGY with the Supremes. DIANA ROSS (first solo album with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Reach Out And Touch Somebody's Hand"), DIANA ROSS (1976 - album with "Love Hangover" and "Do You Know Where You're Going To") and then we hit a steady string starting in 1979: THE BOSS, diana, WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE?, SILK ELECTRIC, ROSS, SWEPT AWAY, EATEN ALIVE, RED HOT RHYTHM AND BLUES and WORKIN's OVERTIME.
WORKIN' OVERTIME was the last one I bought for years and years. After I met C.I. and we became friends, I purchased her UK live album (GREATEST HITS LIVE) and I bought THANK YOU and love it.
So I'm exploring her non-hit 70s recordings by listening to so many of the 70s albums. Right now, I'm listening to EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING It was her second solo album and her second album of 1970 She does Aretha's "Call Me" and Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis' "Close To You" on the album as well as the Beatles "Come Together" and "The Long And Winding Road." Diana's been interpreting the Beatles longer than any American artist, I believe. The group hit in 1964 and that same year saw Diana singing lead on five Lennon and McCartney songs on the Supremes album A LITTLE BIT OF LIVERPOOL.
So the songs she's covered by the Beatles include "Come Together," "The Long and Winding Road," "Hey Jude," "A World Without Love," "A Hard Day's Night," "You Can't Do That'," "Can't Buy Me Love,' "I Want To Hold Your Hand," "Eleanor Rigby" and John Lennon's "Imagine."
Considering how artists like Judy Collins who ignored the Beatles in real time (in 1965, she finally discovered them long enough to do "In My Life" and then she forgot them again) have done whole albums, it surprises me that no one's thought to have Diana do an album of Beatles songs. In fact, I'd love to hear her interpret them, do an album interpreting Dinah Washington, one of the Temptations and one of Stevie Wonder.
If she did a Stevie album, I'd love for her to cover "Master Blaster," "As," "Ribbon In The Sky," "Love's In Need Of Love Today," "I Beleive When I Fall In Love," "Isn't She Lovely," "Overjoyed" (she's done this on a Christmas album already and I love her version), "All I Do," "All In Love Is Fair," "Higher Ground," "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It" and "All In Love Is Fair."
Diana always finds a way into a song that's unique.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love another album of new material immediately. But it was so long before we got THANK YOU (and that is a wonderful album but if we could get something sooner by her doing a tribute album or two, I'd be thrilled.
I thought I was done. How could I suggest a cover album and not suggest the obvious: Ashford & Simpson.
1) "Solid"
2) "Mighty, Mighty Love"
3) "Count Your Blessings"
4)"Times Will Be Good Again"
5) "Ill Be There For You"
6) "High Rise"
7) "Is It Still Good To Ya"
8( "Clouds"
9) "Your Precious Love"
10) "Uh-Uh-Oh-Oh Look Out Here It Comes"
11) "Hungry For Me Again"
12) "Till We Get It Right"
13) "Cookies and Cake"
14) "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing"
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, May 11, 2022. US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for the 'crime' of journalism, elements in Ukraine get more public about support for Nazis, Iraq is being destroyed by the early stages of climate change, and much more.
As US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, Duncan Campbell (GUARDIAN) writes:
Priti Patel now has to make one of the most important decisions of her career: will she bow to heavy pressure from the United States and send a vulnerable man who has been convicted of no crime to face an indeterminate number of years in an American jail where he may experience intimidation and isolation? Her decision is imminent and all other legal avenues have been explored.
This was the scenario 10 years ago in the case of Gary McKinnon, the computer hacker who, working out of his north London bedroom, trawled through the computer systems of Nasa and the US defence department in search of information about UFOs and left behind some mildly rude messages about the systems’ sloppy security. The home secretary was Theresa May, who halted extradition proceedings at the last minute.
Now Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and also a vulnerable man – who has been in Belmarsh high-security prison for three years without being convicted of any crime – is facing extradition, with the issue due to be decided this month. Once again, the home secretary has an opportunity to demonstrate, as May did, that respect for justice and humanity are much finer and more enduring qualities than appeasement.
It is worth recalling the words of party leaders in support of McKinnon after Labour home secretaries – to their great shame – declined to intervene in the years after his initial arrest in 2002. Nick Clegg, then leading the Liberal Democrats in opposition, said that McKinnon “has been hung out to dry by a British government desperate to appease its American counterparts”. David Cameron, before he became prime minister, had said: “McKinnon is a vulnerable young man and I see no compassion in sending him thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones to face trial.”
The current case is different in that, while McKinnon remained at liberty, Assange has been held in custody alongside murderers and terrorists after the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, seeking political asylum. He should have been given bail long ago to be with his wife, Stella Moris, whom he married in prison in March, and their two young children; he could simply be electronically tagged and monitored. It is also different in that he faces charges under the Espionage Act which carries a potential sentence of 175 years. And yes, the US criminal justice system does actually impose such medieval sentences.
Last year, at the Summit for Democracy, Joe Biden pledged to support a free press: “It’s the bedrock of democracy. It’s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. Around the world, press freedom is under threat.” As it happens, it is 50 years since Daniel Ellsberg was being prosecuted under a similar law to the ones Assange faces for releasing the Pentagon Papers which exposed the lies and hypocrisies of the Vietnam war. He is one of Assange’s staunchest supporters. This week he told me that “this extradition would mean that journalists, anywhere in the world, could be extradited to the US for exposing information classified in the US”. He argues that it would also set a precedent that any reporter could be extradited to other countries for exposing information classified in those countries.
Assange also has the backing of all organisations that battle on behalf of freedom of expression, from Amnesty International to Reporters Without Borders. As Julia Hall of Amnesty International puts it: “Demanding that states like the UK extradite people for publishing classified information that is in the public interest sets a dangerous precedent and must be rejected.”
Johnny Harris provides this overview of Julian's case.
Joe Biden could stop the persecution and the war on The /first Amendment at any time. He chooses not to stop it. There is no functioning adult in the world.
We'll note this Tweet:
The world is watching and cannot stop laughing at the hypocrisy that is Joe Biden.
Joe is the hypocrite that's backing Nazis in Ukraine. Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "UTool Of Empire" detailed how U2 couldn't visit war zones when the people weren't European (racism) and how they took the stage with a Ukrainian performer who was flashing White Power signs while photographers were taking pictures.
Let's note these related Tweets:
And these from Margaret Kimberley:
Turning to Iraq . . .
In the last six weeks, Iraq has been hit repeatedly with heavy dust storms leaving thousands hospitalized. Alisa Chang (NPR) explains, "Over 5,000 Iraqis needed medical care after the country was hit by a severe sandstorm last week. At least one person was killed. This was the seventh major sandstorm to hit the country in the span of one month. And while sandstorms are not uncommon in this part of the world, their increasing frequency and severity has caused concern among climate experts." AP notes, "Nine African heads of states attended Monday's opening session of the UN's COP15 talks to fight desertification and land degradation that have devastated large swathes of the continent amid climate change. Iraq is one of the most vulnerable country to climate change where dust storms are recurrent, having consequences on people's health." FRANCE 24 points out, " Dams built upstream in Turkey and Iran are also choking the country’s rivers, and farmers can no longer access the water needed to grow their crops." Dylan O’Driscoll & Shivan Fazil of The Wilson Center write:
The UN Environment Programme has ranked Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change. In recent years, it has increasingly witnessed extreme heatwaves with temperatures reaching above 50°C. Iraq’s mean annual temperature also is predicted to increase by two degrees Celsius by 2050.
The effects of these trends are clear. Drought and associated environmental degradation have eroded rural livelihoods in Iraq by heightening resource competition and posing severe implications for social cohesion. The impacts of climate change also interact with the shortfalls in basic services and lack of economic opportunities, exacerbating several key drivers of insecurity in an already fragile country.
This past year has been particularly dry and dusty. Annual rainfall has decreased amidst prolonged periods of drought, diminishing water supplies and taking a toll on agriculture production. Water flows from the Tigris and Euphrates have diminished due to upriver damming in Turkey and Iran. Rising temperatures and declining rainfall affect soil moisture and make dust storms more frequent. Over the past month, Iraq has been hit by dust storm after dust storm, which has brought life to a grinding halt and sent hundreds of people to the hospital with respiratory illnesses.
This water scarcity aggravates existing tensions, and makes the downstream riparian communities in the historically poorer south more vulnerable. These communities are also a hotspot for anti-government protests. Ironically, the climate is also making this year’s flash floods deadlier. These deluges have devastated homes—and killed at least a dozen in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Extreme weather events are only one aspect of how climate change is making a perilous situation in Iraq worse, compounding existing vulnerabilities. Iraq has already witnessed a breakdown of the social contract with mass protests across the country over inadequate public services, unemployment, corruption, and poor governance. Climate change will further exacerbate these issues, and in turn feed grievances and drive instability. It is imperative that climate adaptation play a part in the Iraqi government’s response to addressing the many grievances of those who live there.
We'll wind down with this from Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT):
On May 2, 2022, a memo written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico.com . Alito made clear that the court with a 6 to 3 conservative majority intends to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the United States.
Reaction to the news was swift and predictable. Liberals expressed outrage and marched on federal courthouses and even to the homes of Supreme Court justices. Barack Obama released a long winded 700 word statement declaring himself, and his wife, strongly opposed to the court’s imminent decision. The statement is amusing because it gives the impression that Obama had nothing to do with the current state of affairs.
As a presidential candidate in 2008 Obama promised to sign the Freedom of Choice Act , which would have codified abortion rights into federal law. But once in office he never pushed congress to pass it. In typical Obamaesque fashion he would claim to believe that women had the right to choose abortion, but that he didn’t want to demonize the opposition, and he wanted to find consensus on the issue. After his usual routine “on the one hand this, but on the other hand that” on April 29, 2009 he finally said out loud what was clear. “The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority.” It wasn’t even his lowest legislative priority. Obama never lifted a finger to get it passed, even in his two years in office when he had majorities in the House and the Senate.
Knowing full well that Roe v. Wade hinged on having a supportive Supreme Court in place, he dithered on doing what he had the power to do. In 2013 he knew that the democrats might lose control of the senate in the 2014 election. He asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, already 80-years old and a cancer patient, to step down. She declined and he didn’t press the issue. In 2016 conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died and senate republicans refused to even hold hearings to confirm Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland. Obama had the option of making a recess appointment that would have put Garland on the court but he didn’t do that either. Such a move would have been controversial, and perhaps Garland’s presence would have been short, but it would have made clear that democrats were as committed as they claimed to be on the issue of abortion rights.
Instead they play games with democratic voters. Any unhappiness with the democrats is met with the plea to protect the federal judiciary from conservatives. This ploy is nothing but a cynical effort to keep left leaning democrats in the fold and to discredit anyone who questions the party’s continued failures to do what the people want them to do.
Now the liars and hypocrites like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who once claimed abortion was a “fading” issue are sending fundraising appeals to brain washed liberals who will again write checks and declare their devotion like Stockholm Syndrome hostages. Hillary Clinton’s foolish appeals to conservatives included choosing anti-choice senator Tim Kaine as a running mate and at times saying she was “ambivalent ” about abortion are now forgotten as the supposed left of the party remain lost.
They are lost because they don’t know the most basic rules of political mobilizations. Instead of harassing SCOTUS justices at home, they should be harassing their democratic representatives.
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