Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Mark Crispin Miller on Guns and Butter, KPFA Evening News, Pacifica airs Iraq Forum Thurs.

Wally noted two things from Danny Schechter's News Dissector for yesterday. First:

PACIFICA RADIO TO AIR IRAQ FORUM IN CONGRESS
David Swanson writes:
I'll be co-hosting with Verna Avery-Brown of Pacifica Radio, a live broadcast on Pacifica from 8:30-11 a.m. ET on Thursday, April 27, of a forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Congresswomen Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee.

Second:

SCHEDULE
Thanks for tuning in. I will be speaking in Boston at Emerson College on Friday at 7 PM. The film The Jihadi and the Journalist which I worked on opens at the Tribeca Film Festival on the 27th, and South African Broadcasting’s SABC 1 airs on April 26th on SABC 1 at 9 PM. Amandla!

Rebecca and I are both leading with the item above (from C.I.'s morning entry) because Elaine intended to include it. She posted and started trying to get packed for this weekend (she does group on Thursday night and needs to be packed so that she can leave for the airport from work on Friday) when it hit here that she'd forgotten to include it. With packing tonight and a personal errand (plus, she fears, a trip to the drug store because she's not sure if she has any minature shampoos, deodorant, etc.), she grabbed the phone and called Rebecca who told her not to worry and that she'd pick it up and call me to see if I could as well. That's how it works, we all help each other and if one of us forgets something, another can include it. Or, as we do, we can cover different issues at our sites.

Karl Rove testified for the fifth time to the grand jury on Plamegate. "Rove's legal problems stem from the fact that it was more than a year into the investigation before he revealed the [Matt] Cooper conversation." That's from KPFA's Evening News that's on right now. You got two strong announcements and a bit of news and the entry's just getting started! Also Norman Solomon was on evaluating Tony Snow's past work and how that might impact his actions as White House press secretary (replacing Scott McClellen). Solomon thinks that Snow's objective will be to go on the attack with the press (the way he attacked the patriotism of Dems and others during the last few years).

David Enders is doing a report on the missing in Iraq. I'm pausing to listen. More than 34,000 Iraqis are held in prisons and the system still isn't sufficient for families trying to determine where their missing members are -- in a prison or just missing and soon to turn up dead and with signs of torture.

Let me talk about KPFA's Guns and Butter from this afternoon. Mark Crispin Miller gave a talk on the 2004 elections and took questions. He believes the issue of verified voting is a very important one (agreed) and that we can't count on the Democrats for this. He noted how he'd spoken to John Kerry and Kerry said, this isn't a direct quote, that he knew but couldn't interest anyone in the problem. This was noted when Miller was a guest on Democracy Now! Miller talked about how after that, Kerry's people rushed, the same day, to deny the conversation. That's too bad. It's too bad Kerry and Chris Dodd can't see that if we don't have verified voting, we don't have voting. Miller talked about how some didn't want to touch the issue including in the press. In terms of those on the left who are journalists, he noted that many were freelancers and you're talking about them potentially risking their livelihood (presumably because idiots like Tommy Zeller Jr. at the New York Times was immeditately ridiculing people questioning the vote weeks after the election). Miller's a professor and he has tenure so he can put it out there with little risk (other than some slams from the Zeller freaks). Miller noted that Bully Boy "won" in 2004 with either an increase of eleven million from 2000 or by eleven million. (Listen to the program.) He pointed out that the evangical vote couldn't have provided that (despite the press spin) because Karl Rove said repeatedly in 2004 that they were targeting the 4 million evangicals that didn't vote in 2000 for Bully Boy. So where did all these "new" votes come from at a time when Bully Boy lost editorials (papers that endorsed him in 2000 but didn't in 2004) and many Republicans (such as Bob Barr) were warning that he wasn't a conservative. Add in the unpopular war (that's my point). If we don't fix it, we better be prepared for more of the same.

If you missed it, you can listen to an archived broadcast of Guns and Butter online. And remember that the Guns and Butter benefit showing of the film Loose Change is next week:

May 2nd (Tuesday)
7:00 pm
Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Avenue
Oakland, CA
(510) 704-0268

And quick nod to Ron of Why Are We Back In Iraq? who hit hard on the issues of problems with the 2004 vote back in November and December of 2004 (I think January as well).
















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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Guns & Butter airs tomorrow; The Free Design, Ani DiFranco, Pink, Josh Ritter

Reminder, tomorrow (Wednesday) on KPFA at one o'clock in the afternoon (Pacific Time), Guns and Butter -- so if you already listen, remember to. If you don't, think about checking it out.

I've got a question or request in an e-mail. Free Design. The Free Design, actually. Do most of you know the group? I was asked if I'd consider reviewing it (by Joan). I actually have two of their albums (one on vinyl, one on CD). I know the group, they recorded in the lates sixties and early seventies. I don't have a problem with reviewing them. But I do have some other reviews I'd like to work on. (Josh Ritter being one.) But when I was reading Joan's e-mail, I thought of how easily I could write that review. Not a lot of thought since I know their stuff (and have, on CD, the album Joan wanted me to consider reviewing) and I'm pretty sure what angle I'd take on it.

But, here's the thing. I can work on Ritter this week (which means thinking -- I write these things at the last minute only after I've tossed them around in my head for days -- sometimes I'll get a sentence when I'm dreaming, wake up and write it down, but mostly I don't really write until I sit down to). If I do that, I might have it done by next week. Or I could work on The Free Design and have it done within a week. That would push Ritter back.

There have been two requests for Pink's I'm Not Dead. I haven't listened yet but I did go out and buy it today. I was planning to make Ani DiFranco's new concert CD my next review. But Saturday night/Sunday morning, we were short on stuff so I suggested The Third Estate Sunday Review grab it which they did ("CD Review: Ani DiFranco's Carnegie Hall .4.6.02"). That's a group review and I'm not sure I have any additional points to make on it so that may be end of story in terms of a review. (Though I may note a few tracks from it here.)

But if you've got an opinion on my reviewing The Free Design, let me know.

Check out: "NYT: Taking a look at the pipeline, ignoring other things"; "Cell Phone Use Tips"; "Cookie Marshmallow Cups in the Kitchen"; "THIS JUST IN! THE DEALER IN CHIEF": "Thomas Friedman is the Meanest Generation"; "Antonia Juhasz on The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time"; and "Cover to Cover with Denny Smithson (Interviewing Jane Fonda)."

















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Saturday, April 22, 2006

Ben Harper, Carole King, Carly Simon and Guns and Butter

Busy week. I finally wrote the review of Ben Harper's Both Sides of The Gun -- "Both Sides of the Coin -- Ben Harper's Both Sides of The Gun vs. The Living Room Tour" -- and I finished the project I was working on. (So bills will be paid!) Jess, Ava and C.I. forwarded some of the e-mails on that from non-members of the community. Some Carole King fans are offended -- in the review, I contrast Harper's Both Sides of The Gun with Carole King's The Living Room Tour -- and, of those, my favorite has to be one where the woman tells me that King had a limited amount of space and "couldn't get to everything." A limited amount of space? She had two discs. There are 21 tracks. She does a medley on one track that contains seven songs. So, in fact, the album has 27 songs. It was Carole King, not me, who wrote:

I remember a time gone by
When peace and hope and dreams were high
We followed inner visions and touched the sky
Now we who still believe won't let them die.

She wrote that. Music and lyrics. (Not just music as it sometimes the case.) She wrote many songs like that, throughout her career. By the point some critics were grumbling that she was a "Pollyanna," it was because you knew each album would have at least one (sometimes more than one) song about peace.

We need peace now. Where is Carole King?

If 9/11 changed everything for Carole King, she needs to say so.

Or if all of those songs were just jerking off, she needs to say so.

But she doesn't need to ever put out an album (let alone one with 27 songs) without weighing in on the need for peace if she believes in it. In the sixties, working for Kirshner, et al, she wasn't he socially conscience one. That was generally thought to be Cynthia Weill and Barry Mann. They were political and aware of the world around them.

(Ex-husband Gerry) Goffin and King were just trying to rewrite the last hit a group or artist had and come up with a new one. They ended up with some amazing songs. That could be the end of it were it not for the fact that Carole King has made her solo career about singing songs of peace, calls for universal brotherhood. So I don't think it's out of bounds to point out that she's suddenly silent.

"War Got Your Tongue?" is disgusting when anyone suffers from it. It's all the more disgusting when you've spent over three decades singing about peace and suddenly suffer an outbreak.

She had little to offer musically, beyond vague statements, while Vietnam raged. Now here we are in another quagmire, she's older, she should be wiser and she can't say a damn word about peace?

She's on a small label (and I think a good guess would be to assume that she may be the label in some way). There was nothing preventing her from weighing in with a new song or dusting off an earlier song. "Peace in the Valley" wasn't overlooked by me, as one e-mail wondered. I know the song. I note it in the Harper review and the original review of King's live album.

It's the weakest choice she could have made. It's not a "peace" song and people rolled their eyes when it came out the first time (1973). It was embarrassing then. I defended her at the time, as Vietnam raged, saying to my friends, "She just wrote a dopey song." Now? Now, it goes to pattern. When our nation is not officially involved in a war, she's happy to toss out peace songs like flowers. When we are, she's got nothing to offer.

So which is it? Is she for peace or not? We've been lied into an illegal war and people are dying, Carole King has no pressure from a corporation telling her what she can or cannot record, and she offers that weak ass song?

"Love the ones I can" was seen, in 1973, as weak enough to allow "universal appeal." You could be a hawk wanting to nuke Vietnam but hear the song and nod along. "Yep, can't love them Vietnamese!" you could tell yourself. It was so weak. It was weak then and it's even weaker now.

So where's "Time Gone By" or any of her stronger efforts? When this live album was recorded, the United States people had already experienced a "Change of Heart, Change of Mind" (to put in Carole terms). There was nothing risky about including an old song (and that's if she was unable to or scared to write a new one). That's not even going into the very rare interviews that she has given over the years.

So I think it's fair to ask what's happened? Did 9/11 change her opinions? If not, were her opinions real to begin with or was it just marketing? If she believed it then and believes it now (in peace), then she's a coward for not speaking out in song at a time when others already have and when the nation's mood is against the war.

Which brings us back to Vietnam and all the criticism some gave her then. She was considered the anti-Janis, the soft woman who was pliable. A lot of that criticism was based upon sexism (she wasn't seen as a "good time" gal -- putting out). But some of it did have validity. And now that we're once again a nation at war, where is Carole King?

C.I. noted that one person wrote in complaining and stated that I wouldn't do that to Carly Simon. C.I. wrote "check with Kat" but C.I. was correct. Carly Simon's career has not included a song on every album about peace. She's written some great songs. And some have been the sort that could be read as peace songs. But she's not big on the "universal," the way Carole King is (or Bono, or Cher, or go down the list). Simon writes introspective, personal songs. (Not a complaint, I enjoy Carly's work.) But the thing is, Carly put out an album at the same time Carole put out this load of crap.

Carly's album was a dual disc -- one side was music, one side DVD. So we can say they both put out double disc albums. On Carly's DVD, she's rather clear about where she stands on the war (no suprise, against it). Why Carole King can't do the same is beyond me.

In terms of "corporate pressure," Carly's album came out on Sony. That's a huge corporation. But that didn't stop Carly from noting the war. Carole's on a tiny label (that, like others she's recorded on in the last 15 or so years, may disappear before the next CD comes out). From a marketing stand point, speaking out against the war may have actually gotten Carole some press. Instead of just counting on those TV buys (the ads), she might have gotten some press.
But either a change in belief, a desire not to offend or the fact that she never believed in peace, allowed her to release a double album with 27 songs while the nation is at war and the people have turned against it, without ever commenting on the war. That doesn't cut it. Not when you've presented yourself, year after year, album after album, as the Peace Queen.

Joni Mitchell hasn't had new material in sometime. But she's been repackaging her work. If you listen to any of those CDs, you grasp quickly that she's pulling them together to comment on today. In repackaging only, Joni Mitchell can make more of a commentary on the world today than Carole in recording a new, double disc, album.

By the way, I disagree with C.I. on one thing regarding the uproar all of this has caused among visitors. C.I. wrote that Elaine and I were the writers of our pieces. (Elaine's "My pacificism isn't a cloak I wear some days and others put on war drag" is wonderful, read it.) That's true and it's false. I understand why C.I. is saying that -- people are too often stripped of their accomplishments and, as the most visible writer in the community, C.I. doesn't want to take any credit away from what Elaine and I wrote. Check with Elaine for her thoughts, but she and I typed each word ourselves, thought about them and went through a long process, that is true. It's also true, at least for me, that C.I. was there to offer input of, "I can follow that" and "You lost me there." But it did go beyond that. Not in terms of co-authorship. But certainly in terms of sparking an idea or new line of thought. Elaine did the same for me. It was a contribution that I appreciate and want to think them both for. It wasn't co-authorship, and I think that's what C.I. was trying to get across. (I know from Ava, C.I. hit the roof over visitors saying that Elaine and I had, basically, taken dictation. C.I. felt that robbed us not only of what we'd done -- written our pieces -- but also implied that we couldn't think for ourselves.)

But both of them made contributions. That might have just been in discussions, it might have been in helping me rework a phrase. C.I. wanted to be sure that Elaine and I received the credit for what we wrote. I want to be sure that C.I. and Elaine get the credit for the help they provided me with. I wrote it, it's my name on it, it's my thoughts. But I did have input from both. Elaine and my discussion early Wednesday, she was on lunch, it was earlier here. I think I called her . . . I'm trying to think why I called her. I know I was feeling blocked on the project I was working on. And I know I was just not in the mood to stay with it at that second. (I would have destroyed it out of frustration.) So I walked away, picked up the phone and dialed her. I looked at the clock and remember thinking, "She's on lunch" or should be. But I really don't know why I called her. Fate.

But I complained about feeling blocked in the first few minutes and she spoke of the guy writing the Force Wagon piece. She spoke about how that offended her -- the idea that there we must act RIGHT NOW and that there is only ONE option. And we spoke of how peace is the first thing that gets tossed out the window when some people come up against a choice. After that, I called C.I. and I was really angry. I was angry about what the man had written and, when C.I. said "Peace In The Valley," I realized I was angry about Carole King as well. That's when it all started clicking in my mind that Ben Harper's album, which I love, was the album Carole King could have recorded. That's when I went back to work on my project and then on the review (which I finished before finishing the art project).

There was no "plan" among the three of us. But the conversations among the three of us did spark me. (I'm sure they did Elaine as well.) So I thank them both and don't understimate their contributions. I do grasp C.I.'s fear that some will read a thank you and acknowledgement and say, "Oh, Kat didn't write that!" I wrote the review. But the assistance provided by Elaine and C.I. isn't something I'll underestimate. (I'll also note that C.I. pushes away credit for everything including things C.I. writes at The Common Ills.)

Now let's talk about Guns and Butter. I was on break from everything to listen to that. I listen to KPFA or music all the time but for Guns and Butter, I sit down and listen. I'd gotten up to go to the kitchen and put my plate and glass in the sink (I'd been eating lunch while I listened) because the show was over and I come back in and Bonnie Faulkner's doing announcements in a shaky voice. I thought, "Oh my God, something's happened!" I thought maybe she was about to be evicted from the studio (a leap long term listeners of KPFA might make) or, worse, that the government was shutting her down.

I was calling around trying to figure out what was going on when I got Sumner and he told me that while I was in the kitchen, I'd missed Bonnie's statement that she'd had to run upstairs to grab her notes for the announcements and that's why she was out of breath.

The episode was a rebroadcast of an interview Bonnie had done with Ted Gunderson who is a retired FBI agent and has worked with Jerry Brown and others. Gunderson believes that the 9/11 attacks were a government plot. He felt that way when he first heard the news and his research since has only strengthend his belief. Gunderson was in charge of a division in Los Angeles, FBI, before he retired, over 700 employees. Now Lee Hamilton and others don't want to hear from him. Suddenly, he's not credible.

He walks you through the government's history, with emphasis on Oklahoma City and the original attack on the WTC, to show you how he backs up his beliefs. He believes that bombs brought down the towers on 9/11.

Guns and Butter airs each Wednesday on KPFA at one o'clock Pacific time. Hopefully, it's a show you'll check out. Bonnie Faulkner's the host and, if you can take something outside the standard line, you'll enjoy the fine work she does.

Check out Betty's latest "When friends are awarded, Thomas Friedman goes fugue," C.I.'s "NYT: A columnist can tell it's news -- why can't the reporting section?" and really all the sites. I'm rushing because C.I.'s holding an entry so that Cedric and I can post and it can be noted.
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