Just a musical grab bag post of musical items in the news this week. Some Joni Mitchell news:
Joni Mitchell has collected a shelf-full of awards over her half century-plus career, but she said few have been sweeter than the honorary doctorate bestowed on her on Tuesday evening (August 23) by the Berklee College of Music in recognition of her contribution to music.
“Since her debut in the late 1960s, Joni has been a force for change in the industry, blazing the trail for women in music with an unwavering commitment to achieving the status rightfully due her as one of the world’s great musical artists,” Berklee President Erica Muhl said at the event, which was held at a private residence in Santa Monica, California. In addition to lauding Mitchell’s trailblazing musical career, Muhl said the evening was also a chance to “highlight Joni’s important work as an activist and champion for women in music” via a collaboration with the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, an organization she said has done “pioneering work in this same area.”
With her signature wit on full display, Mitchell, 78, paid homage to both her childhood piano teacher and her parents in a speech that was both self-deprecating and thoughtful. She collected the award while reminiscing about the piano instructor who called her out for not following the sheet music, quoting the words that echoed in her head as a child.
“‘Why would you want to play by ear when you can have the masters under your fingertips!’ And she whacked me across the knuckles with her ruler,” Mitchell said with a laugh while recalling her early lessons, according to a story about the night’s event. “So I said to her, ‘But the masters had to play by ear to come up with that stuff.’ And she whacked me again. I wonder if she saw any of this [tonight]. It’s my moment of revenge.”
The night also included video clip tributes from many of Mitchell’s admirers, including Eurythmics and solo star Annie Lennox, who said, ” I’d never have thought about becoming a singer-songwriter if I’d never heard Court and Spark and all the beautiful, beautiful pieces of work that you have created over your lifetime.”
The New Kids on the Block singer, 53, revealed to Entertainment Tonight that he and longtime love Harley Rodriguez quietly tied the knot.
When asked about the ring on his finger, Knight said "we did" get married.
"But everybody just assumed we're married, so, I never say yes or no 'cause I don't wanna lie," he added in the interview, published Wednesday.
ET added that while the couple is officially hitched, they haven't celebrated yet due to the pandemic.
The former teen heartthrob — who shot to fame in the late '80s with his bandmates, younger brother Jordan, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood — was first introduced to Rodriguez back in 2008.
After getting engaged in 2016, the pair began planning their wedding, with sights set on tying the knot in 2021, before delaying the nuptials due to COVID concerns.
"We were going to get married on the farm this year under a tent and then have the ceremony in our barn," Knight told PEOPLE of their plans for last year, referring to the expansive property where he and Rodriguez live in Massachusetts. "We had everything lined up: the caterers, the entertainment. We were going to get married under candlelight. And then that all just stopped."
I hope it's a happy and loving marriage. They make a cute couple. Now The Monkees.
That's from last Sunday on CBS THIS MORNING. They've done a lot of strong musical segments this year. Let me note Ruth:
And I agree with Ruth, The Monkees were TV actors, they were not a group. Not only did they not record together -- when they finally got control of the studio (and I mean, Mike brought in his friends, Davy used these people, nobody wanted Peter on their tracks, etc) but on the tour I photographed them on, Davy wouldn't even perform on a song that Peter and Mickey did. He'd leave the stage every time. This wasn't a group, it was four actors. And they made a great TV show and some nice pop music was put out in their name.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
•
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
That hope was fuelled further when, in the Government’s first week, the ABC reported on 26 May that Albanese was a signature to an online petition, the Bring Julian Assange Home Campaign. Signing the petition seemed odd because it went to Albanese as Prime Minister.
However, Albanese did not deny the story, which was confirmed by a reliable source who disclosed Albanese had signed up on his first day in office, even before he flew off to Tokyo for the Quad meeting with the Japanese PM, the Indian PM and U.S. President Joe Biden. Despite Albanese’s alleged championing of Assange, there was no indication that he discussed his U.S. extradition.
At a press conference on 31 May, a Guardian journalist asked Albanese whether it was his position that the U.S. should be encouraged to drop the charges against Assange and whether he had made any such representations to the U.S. Government. Albanese sidestepped the question, replying it was his position “that not all foreign affairs should be done by loud hailer”. Labor claimed it was practising ‘quiet diplomacy’.
In a remarkably unhinged analysis, NPR host Terry Gross and New York Times Magazine writer Robert Draper claimed that Russia is a communist country – as they went on about how detached from reality rightwing Republicans are.
Here’s the crux of the clip (many thanks to Bryce Greene), which almost comes off like a comedy sketch (text at bottom):
After I and others tweeted about this, NPR posted this correction:
POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio version of this story, Terry Gross incorrectly states that Russia is a communist country, when she meant to say that Putin was the head of the KGB during the communist era.
Which almost makes it worse. If you substitute what NPR now claims Gross meant to say, it really doesn’t make any sense. Gross and Draper were riffing off each other in what can most charitably be described as a ridiculous example of groupthink.
It displays the all-too-frequent smugness of liberals, going on about other people’s failing to fact check, in this case talking about seniors with “a lot of time on their hands” – while getting the most elementary facts wrong. It’s remarkable projection.
The “correction” ignores that Draper similarly remarked that Putin is “the one great promoter of that [communist] ideology.”
The “correction” is also wrong because Putin wasn’t “head of the KGB during the communist era” – he quit the KGB in 1991 as a lieutenant colonel. He would be appointed head of the successor group, the Federal Security Service, in 1998, years after the fall of communism in Russia, by U.S. tool Boris Yeltsin.
(One of Draper’s most recent books is To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq, which came out last year. If Google books search is to be believed, the book is something of a cover-up. It has nothing on Biden’s presiding over the rigged hearings that helped ensure the invasion, which Biden has continuously lied about.)
Soon to be former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney is the flavor of the month for liberals. The cause of the undeserved adulation is her condemnation of Donald Trump and his role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
She lost her Republican Party primary precisely because she turned on Trump, who is still loved by the masses of republican voters. Conversely, the idol worship from democrats has reached bizarre levels, including support for a Liz Cheney presidential campaign.
Of course that was Cheney’s goal all along. She saw attacking Trump as her own ticket to the Oval Office. She always has been a rank opportunist. She began her political career challenging republican senator Mike Enzi by claiming that the arch conservative wasn’t conservative enough. Voters in the very red state of Wyoming weren’t fooled and she later had to settle for its lone congressional seat.
Liz Cheney and her father Dick Cheney are among the republican establishment class. Cheney père was the man chosen to guide dim bulb George W. Bush as his Vice President. That’s how they work. The white masses are not to be trusted with their choices and more reliable people are chosen to keep them in line.
But Trump was cut from a different cloth. The establishment didn’t want him, but he surprised them with his win and insisted on going his own way. Of course they got what they wanted from him, including a long sought after tax cut for rich people, more deregulation and a foreign policy that upped the imperialist ante by punishing countries such as Iran, Venezuela and Cuba for daring to exist at all.
Trump was indeed different, and fought with party leaders and refused to concede after his November 2020 defeat. His army of incompetent lawyers like Rudy Giuliani ran around the country trying to throw out votes wholesale. They were laughed out of every courtroom but Trump didn’t care. He riled up his supporters and even attempted to interfere with the vote counting process in states directly.
That sort of behavior is anathema to the Cheneys and their ilk. After all Dick Cheney helped Bush 43 steal his election in November 2000. Sending a mob into the Capitol is amateurish and not their thing. Doing the dirty work of voter suppression was and Bush the younger cheated his way into office when his brother the Florida governor took mostly Black Floridians off the voter rolls. In 2004 they repeated the crime, this time in Ohio and the craven John Kerry refused to fight for every vote.
Iraq's Federal Supreme Court set August 30 as the date to convene to decide on the case of dissolving the parliament filed by a Sadrist official, it said on Thursday after demonstrators gathered at the gates of Iraq's top judicial body.
"The subject matter of the case included the ruling to dissolve parliament and oblige the President of the Republic to set a date for holding legislative elections in accordance with Article 64," the statement read.
Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of the Sadrist Movement's political wing, submitted the case to the court following leader Muqtada al-Sadr's calls on the judiciary to dissolve parliament.
Iraq's Supreme Judicial Court earlier in August said it lacks the authority to dissolve the parliament and it does not reserve the right to interfere in legislative or executive matters.
Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court said it will hold a session next Tuesday, August 30, to discuss the case for dissolving parliament amid a political deadlock.
The court said it will discuss the case brought by the head of the Sadrist movement's political body, Nassar Al Rubaie, according to a brief statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency.
The case submitted by Mr Al Rubaie calls for a ruling to dissolve parliament and force the president to set a date for holding legislative elections in accordance with the Iraqi constitution.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 25, 2022
CONTACT: press@iava.org
New York, NY – On Tuesday, August 30th, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America’s (IAVA) Senior Advisor Matt Zeller, will join Khalil Arab, SIVs & Allies Program Manager for Combined Arms, Rye Barcott, Co-Founder and CEO of With Honor, and Mohammad Raffiq Bawar, Afghan Initiatives Coordinator for the Travis Manion Foundation to discuss the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the evacuation efforts, resettlement efforts, the Afghanistan Adjustment Act and more.
“A year has passed since Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. 300,000+ Afghan wartime allies (interpreters & their families) remain left behind. They need our help. IAVA will not abandon them,” said Matt Zeller, Senior Advisor for IAVA. “Events like this are critical because they allow us to share and amplify pertinent information about our Afghan allies. We will fight to ensure that our country keeps its promise to those who served us.”
“We at Combined Arms have supported Special Immigrant Visa recipients (SIVs) and other non-SIV Allies and their integration in Houston since 2019, well before the fall of Kabul,” said Khalil Arab, SIVs & Allies Program Manager for Combined Arms. “We’ve rapidly scaled our efforts to meet the immediate and evolving needs of the estimated 11,000 evacuees that have arrived in Texas since August 2021.”
“The passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act is a national security imperative,” said Rye Barcott, Co-Founder and CEO of With Honor. “We must do right by our Afghan Allies, getting them out of the legal limbo they currently face, so our future allies continue to value the American promise. It is critical we hold discussions like this on the work we have left.”
| WHO: | Matt Zeller, Senior Advisor for IAVA Khalil Arab, SIVs & Allies Program Manager for Combined Arms Rye Barcott, Co-Founder and CEO of With Honor Mohammad Bawar, Afghan Initiatives Coordinator for the Travis Manion Foundation |
| WHAT: | Event discussing the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the evacuation, and the current resettlement efforts. |
| WHEN: | Tuesday, August 30 at 2:45 pm ET. |
| WHERE: | Join the Facebook Live event here. The event is open to the press. |
Combined Arms (CAX) delivers innovative technology solutions that improve the quality of life for veterans and military families. Since 2019, CAX has supported the successful resettlement of over 5,000 Special Immigrant Visa recipients (SIVs) and wartime allies in Houston and across Texas. By design, CAX engages veterans and other volunteers to collaborate with local resettlement agencies to fill resource gaps and provide resource navigation support for recently-arrived SIVs and wartime allies. To learn more about Combined Arms’ SIVs & Allies Program or get involved, please visit: https://www.combinedarms.us/siv
With Honor Action is a cross-partisan movement dedicated to promoting and advancing principled veteran leadership in elected public service. As a part of our overall effort to highlight the importance of veterans and veteran issues, we support principled military veterans in Congress and help amplify their cross-partisan agenda that finds solutions for the American people. We also work with veteran candidates on the nuts and bolts of running for Congress, helping them organize their own campaigns and build a winning strategy.
Travis Manion Foundation (TMF) unites communities to strengthen America’s national character by empowering veterans and families of fallen heroes to develop and lead future generations. In 2007, 1stLt Travis Manion (USMC) was killed in Iraq while saving his wounded teammates. Today, Travis’ legacy lives on in the words he spoke before leaving for his final deployment, “If Not Me, Then Who…” Guided by this mantra, veterans continue their service, develop strong relationships with their communities, and thrive in their post-military lives by serving as character role models to youth. As a result, communities prosper and the character of our nation’s heroes lives on in the next generation.
IAVA is the voice for the post-9/11 veteran generation. With over 425,000 veterans and allies nationwide, IAVA is the leader in non-partisan veteran advocacy and public awareness. We drive historic impacts for veterans and IAVA’s programs are second to none. Any veteran or family member in need can reach out to IAVA’s Quick Reaction Force at quickreactionforce.org or 855-91RAPID (855-917-2743) to be connected promptly with a veteran care manager who will assist. IAVA’s The Vote Hub is a free tool to register to vote and find polling information. IAVA’s membership is always growing. Join the movement at iava.org/membership.
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