Here’s a good example of why I like this guy so much.
He gets it. And he lets you know that he gets it.
This is Edwards speaking at the Gnomedex Tech conference in 2006:
… and from Monday night’s debate:
Via this most excellent diary at Daily Kos.
→ 2 CommentsTags:
Something I’ve been meaning to post for a couple of weeks now … I’ve long thought that Monica Kendrick is the best music writer at the Reader and the spot-on writeup she turned in just before Yoko Ono’s appearance at the recent Pitchfork Music Festival only reinforces that notion:
9:00 Yoko Ono
For decades her name was a punch line, shorthand for “unlistenable freak†and “difficult woman†(badges of honor, really), but for the past 15 years Yoko Ono’s reputation has undergone a steady and consistent rehabilitation—younger musicians finally understand that her fiercely feminist oddity is a feature, not a bug, and that the spiritual simplicity of her art and activism isn’t just the by-product of naivete (surely she can’t have much left at 74). For this spring’s Yes, I’m a Witch (Astralwerks), Ono enlisted artists as diverse as the Flaming Lips, Porcupine Tree, and Le Tigre (to name just a few) to overhaul recordings from her back catalog, creating an album of challenging remixes. Though she’s fiercely protective of John Lennon’s legacy, she recently donated the rights to his songs and their publishing royalties to Amnesty International, a gift that’s resulted in a two-CD collection of Lennon covers, Instant Karma, that benefits the agency’s campaign for Darfur and features the likes of U2, R.E.M., Green Day, and the Black-Eyed Peas. And a few years back she rewrote “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him,†one of her tunes from Double Fantasy, so that its lyrics support marriage equality for gays and lesbians. MK Aluminum Stage
I wasn’t able to catch the show myself — in addition to being swamped with work, outdoor shows in July just aren’t my favorite way to see concerts. Between the heat, the bugs, the humidity and the humanity I’m never able to actually enjoy the music.
But I have very fond memories of Yoko’s show at the Park West in 1996. It was a fabulous evening and a very cool crowd (just for example, a bunch of us got Fred Schneider’s autograph on the sidewalk out front after the show).
Here’s “New York Woman” from 1996’s superb Rising.
… And from earlier this year, here’s Yoko hanging out with Beth Ditto of The Gossip and Ana Matronic of Scissor Sisters, sharing the feminist rocker love.
For many years through the 80s and early 90s I felt like a one-man Yoko Ono anti-defamation league, patiently trying to get people to actually listen to her stunning recordings, and gritting my teeth as they repeated the same old tired, unfunny Joan Rivers one-liners.
And the worst calumny of all, the sadly ironic myth that Yoko somehow “broke up The Beatles.” Listen: When you claim Yoko is the reason The Beatles broke up, you’re really only revealing that you don’t know anything about The Beatles, if you honestly think they could have continued working together into the 70s, with or without Yoko — or for that matter, that John Lennon would have survived his heroin addiction and general disintigration without Yoko to pull him through. He was on a slow path to suicide and she pulled him off of it. Revitalized him. Gave him a reason to live. He said as much himself, many times — I was always astonished at how so many people who claimed to admire him refused to listen to his own testimony.
Without Yoko, there would not only have been no more Beatles — there would have been no “Imagine,” no “Instant Karma,” no Plastic Ono Band. Not to mention no Grapefruit or Approximately Infinite Universe.
So, anyway — it’s good to know that the world is finally starting to catch up to Yoko.
→ 9 CommentsTags:
About 50 Americans have died since yesterday because they couldn’t afford health care.
That brings the total to 350 people who have died thanks to our profit-focused health care system just since I started keeping this count, six days ago.
If 350 US citizens had died in a plane crash this week, we’d be hearing about it endlessly on the news, don’t you think?
They’d be talking about it breathlessly on CNN and MSNBC and all the local news programs. We’d know the names and faces of at least some of the victims.
They’d be looking for the black box, talking about landing gear and engines, ice and runways and air traffic controllers.
Trying to figure out what took those 350 American lives.
Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 7Tags:
(h/t Norm Sloan for a couple of items here.)
Comments Off on Roundup: Picketing Flamingo EditionTags:
About 300 Americans have died because they couldn’t afford health care since I started this count five days ago.
About 50 more will die today.
Since this is turning into a kind of daily witness, I suppose I should document my source for the statistic this is based on.
Michael Moore says in Sicko, and he said on CNN, that 18,000 people die every year in America because they can’t afford health care.
That statistic turns out to be taken from a 2002 report from the Institute of Medicine, entitled “Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late.” You can see it confirmed as accurate here by CNN.
18,000 divided by 365 means 49.3 Americans die every day, on the average, because they’re being denied the health care they need to survive in the most prosperous nation on earth.
→ 1 CommentTags:
Funny, Rubber Nun and I were just talking about Toni Basil.
Now John at Lost in the 80s has “The Ultimate Toni Basil Post.”
Is he spying on us?
→ 2 CommentsTags:
Since I last updated this count, on Friday, about 100 more people have died in the United States because they couldn’t afford health care.
That makes about 250 Americans who were allowed to die because they couldn’t pay for treatment, just since I started this count four days ago.
About 50 more will die today.
Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 5Tags:
First up, Stephen interviews Michael Moore … all the way from Brazil!
Next, Jon Stewart’s take on anti-gay Surgeon General nominee James Holsinger, in which he manages to reveal some surprising truths inherent in plumbing fixtures. (I previously posted Colbert’s take on Holsinger’s fixture fixation, but Stewart gets some good mileage out of it, too.)
Finally, watching Keith Olbermann make fun of Falafel Bill O’Reilly is always good for the soul, and this week he gave Bill a particularly good loofah-ing. The last minute is especially entertaining.
→ 3 CommentsTags:
I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on the whole Moore vs. Gupta dustup while it was happening (much to the relief of the scale!), but here’s a little post-mortem wrap-up.
First off, some links in case you missed any or all of it (all video links except the second one):
Now, here are the best blog comments I saw regarding the whole exchange.
First, Atrios sums it up very plainly, as is his gift:
I haven’t gone into the full details, but from what I could tell from the Larry King joint appearance tonight what happened was fairly typical. Basically, to “fact check” Moore, the kind of scrutiny which rarely happens to, say, hacks from AEI or the Preznit of Amurka, Gupta pulled up some nitpickery alternative numbers. One could determine whether Gupta’s chosen numbers were more or less correct than Moore’s, but nothing supported the idea that Moore “fudged the facts” as was claimed. More than that, the differences weren’t relevant to any point Moore was trying to make.
And Greg Saunders at This Modern World elaborates:
It’s okay if CNN’s numbers are questionable because they’re trying to get “the best available dataâ€, but if Moore’s numbers don’t line up with theirs, he’s a liar. This is ridiculous. There are so many different healthcare studies being done around the world that there is no definitive set of data. If you choose to quote the numbers from Health and Human Services over the World Health Organization, it doesn’t mean you’re trying to deceive people. You just made a different judgment call. CNN’s failure to understand that is what’s most infuriating about their “fact check†segment they used to trash Sicko (and avoid getting angry phone calls from wingnuts).
… so, basically: Moore picks one set of numbers, and reports them faithfully. Then Gupta picks a different set of numbers and claims Moore was “wrong” for using a different source. I think this is typical of a lot of the so-called fact-checking that Moore gets subjected to.
And this is from James Clay Fuller, at the Twin Cities Daily Planet, taking down the whole ridiculous “But Sicko doesn’t let the insurance industry tell its side of the story!” meme:
My favorite criticism of Moore, however, is one employed by at least half the commentaries I’ve read: That the director didn’t give the insurance and pharmaceutical industries time in his film to tell their side of the story.
That, folks, is grandly absurd.
Moore is laying out facts. The industries that profit so hugely from our illnesses spend hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, public relations and lobbying to “tell their side of the story.†One month’s expenditure by the insurance industry for those activities substantially exceeds the cost of making “Sicko.†And Moore doesn’t own a single member of Congress; they’ve bought dozens. (The insurance industry’s almost $400,000 in contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign purse alone would have covered a substantial portion of the cost of making the film.)
Let them tell their lies on their own dime.
Amen.
Previously on Ocelopotamus:
Comments Off on Moore vs. Gupta: The Wrap-UpTags:
Since I started this count two days ago, about 150 people have died here in the US because they couldn’t afford health care.
That’s enough people to fill, what, three or four CTA buses?
About 50 more will die today.
Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 3Tags:
There have been a lot of scandals involving professional sports figures in recent years. But the federal indictment of NFL quarterback Michael Vick (of the Atlanta Falcons) on dogfighting charges is in a far worse league than the latest steroid abuse flap.
Here’s what the email I got from the Humane Society of the United States had to say about it:
Late [Tuesday], a federal grand jury indicted NFL star quarterback Michael Vick and three cohorts on felony dogfighting charges. It’s the latest disturbing news in a case that The Humane Society of the United States has assisted with since the alleged cruelties came to light in Virginia last April.
The abuses described in the 19-page indictment are almost beyond belief:
In or about March of 2003, PEACE [one of Vick’s co-defendants], after consulting with VICK about the losing female pit bull’s condition, executed the losing dog by wetting the dog down with water and electrocuting the animal.
In or about April 2007, PEACE, PHILLIPS, and VICK executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well in “testing” sessions…by various methods, including hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”
The NFL expressed “disappointment†and said yesterday that “we believe that all concerned should allow the legal process to determine the facts.â€
Well, that’s just not good enough. These acts were not petty or harmless; they were nothing short of gruesome and barbaric. And there is precedent for a suspension: Other NFL players, such as Pacman Jones and Chris Henry, have been suspended while they awaited trial and before they were convicted.
Unfortunately — sickeningly, in fact — as of today, the NFL is still sticking to its decision to let Vicks keep playing while the legal process plays out.
Falcons officials continued to huddle Thursday as they try to decide what — if any — action to take in the wake of Michael Vick’s federal indictment on dog-fighting charges.
The Associated Press reported that, after consulting with the Falcons, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and league officials agreed to let Vick play while the legal process determines the facts.
The NFL has made a contemptible decision here and they need to feel the heat.
Here’s a link to a page on the Humane Society’s site where you can read more about the case and send an email to the NFL demanding that they suspend Michael Vick.
Not too surprisingly, given their track record on human rights, Nike is behaving contemptibly as well:
Vick was ranked 24th in Sports Illustrated’s list of top-earning athletes in 2006, collecting $13 million in salary and $7 million in endorsements. He is sponsored by Nike, which has yet to weigh in on the situation other than releasing a statement Wednesday saying, “We are aware of the indictment. We have no further comment at this time.”
Nike has a history of maintaining relationships with its athletes even in the face of controversy. It kept its ties with cyclist Lance Armstrong despite persistent doping rumors, and with Lakers guard Kobe Bryant after his arrest for sexual assault in Colorado.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times has a strongly worded piece today saying that the NFL needs to smell the coffee pretty fast:
Yes, it’s just an indictment for Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, and not a conviction. But the words in that indictment are just too hideous to look past, too sickening to forget.
”Dogfighting ring” sounds bad enough. But that’s a title, a label. These are the words that will sink Vick: He is accused of having ”executed the losing dog by wetting the dog down with water and electrocuting the animal.” That’s on Page 12 of the indictment.
… Vick cannot play in the NFL for a while. Maybe ever. I know, just an accusation. But commissioner Roger Goodell has a league image to consider. And Goodell has been championed as the guy trying to clean that image up.
This isn’t the same as Tank Johnson’s case, or Pacman Jones’, or Chris Henry’s. Those guys, all suspended, were repeat offenders.
This is much, much worse than that. Vick is a superstar, an individual in a league of helmet-covered faces. We will not look at Vick the same again.
The Sun-Times also had some hard words for another of Vick’s defenders in the NFL:
The league didn’t much need to hear from the Washington Redskins’ Clinton Portis a few weeks ago, either, when he told WAVY-TV in Virginia, ”I don’t know if he was fighting dogs or not, but it’s his property, it’s his dog.
”If that’s what he wants to do, do it. I think people should mind their own business.”
Portis’ comment is almost as disturbing as Vick’s indictment. These guys are both examples of this thug culture. Well, it’s worse than thug. It’s outrageous that anyone would try to defend this.
The only possible good that can come from this is if a broad segment of the public becomes more educated about the reality of animal fighting rings.
In general I love Wes Anderson as a director, and The Royal Tennenbaums is my favorite film of his. But there is a truly awful moment in that film where the rascally dad takes the grandkids to see a dogfight, and it’s played for laughs, like it’s kind of cute or something. That Royal Tennebaum, he’s just an old rogue! It nearly spoils the whole movie for me.
So anyway, I’m glad to see this issue getting some attention in the media.
Action link: The Humane Society’s page where you can send an email to the NFL.
Photo: One of the dogs seized from Vick’s property, from the HSUS site.
|
Spread the word: |
|
|
→ 6 CommentsTags:
About 50 more people died yesterday, here in the United States of America, because they couldn’t afford health care.
That means that about 100 Americans have died due to lack of affordable health care since I started this tally yesterday.
About 50 more will die today.
Comments Off on Good Morning, Day 2Tags:
The new Crowded House album, Time on Earth, was released last week in the US and the week before in the UK. It’s available for download from iTunes (with bonus tracks!) and of course you can get the CD from Amazon.
The band will be touring through December (including their two shows here in Chicago, August 18 & 19 at the House of Blurgh), and after that Neil Finn says he’s ready to hit the studio again:
“There’s a real spring in our step as a band,” [Finn] said. “I’ve got a bunch of new songs and want to ride the momentum we’ve got.”
A few of my favorites after listening to Time on Earth for a week or so (other than the thoroughly brilliant first single “Don’t Stop Now,” which I’ve already written about):
The lyrics that jumped out at me on the first listen are these, excerpted from “Pour Le Monde” (titled in French, the language of Freedom!) Something about liars who “believe their own dark medicine,” and being “for the world not for the war.” Hmmm …
… and I wake up blind
like my dreams were too bright
and I lost my regard
for the good things that I had
and the radio was sad
when you listen for good
in a hope that comes to nothing
cos the liars have moved in
And They Believe
Their Own Dark Medicine
they act so nonchalant
but he is not a dog
perform for you in a stadium
for the world not for the war
and he won’t hesitate
though it might lead to heartache
in the night club indigo
for the world not for the war
pour le monde pas pour la guerre
When you listen for good
in a hope that comes to nothing
cos the liars have moved in
And they brew their own dark medicine
Believing it’s good …
Methinks hanging around with those Dixie Chicks must have rubbed off on Neil a little.
Download Time on Earth from iTunes:
Previously on Ocelopotamus:
|
Spread the word: |
|
|
Comments Off on Crowded House: For the World, Not for the WarTags:
About 50 people died yesterday, here in America, because they couldn’t afford health care.
About 50 more people will die today, for the same reason.
→ 5 CommentsTags:
