Ocelopotamus

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Roundup: Dinosaur Corsage Edition

August 31st, 2007 · Activism, Advertising, Comics, Culture, Doctor Who, Energy, Film, Foreign Policy, Health, Healthcare Crisis, History, Human Rights, Law, LGBT, Media, Nature, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, Roundup, Science, TV

orchid corsage

  • Scary stuff: There’s a lot of buzz and speculation that starting just after Labor Day, the Bush administration is going to be rolling out a major PR campaign to pave the way for war with Iran. See here and here for starters. Grand Moff Texan at DKos says the Bushies will be using the same tired arguments they used to justify war with Iraq, i.e., the nuclear threat, and building false links to September 11. And of course they’ll gloss over all sorts of irrelevant details like: How would the US pay for such a war? Where would the troops come from, when National Guard and Reserve troops are already pinned down in Iraq? Are they planning a draft? (Maybe planning to stick the next president with a situation where a draft is unavoidable, so someone else gets the blame?) And how can the US “finish the job” in Iraq (not to mention Afghanistan) with its attention diverted to Iran?
  • Fascinating piece in the LA Times on how Karl Rove has used reverse psychology in his campaigns. For example, according to the story, during the 2004 primary season Rove had his team attack John Kerry so Democrats would rally around him — because the Democrat the Republicans really feared was, you guessed it, John Edwards. Republican strategist Matthew Dowd is quoted as saying: “So we started attacking John Kerry a lot in the end of January because we were very worried about John Edwards. And we knew that if we focused on John Kerry, Democratic primary voters would sort of coalesce [around Kerry].” Via This Modern World.
  • The natural Bush response to the recent mining disaster: remove restrictions on unsafe mining! (It’s like arguing that the best response to a deadly fire should be to enourage more people to play with matches.) Devilstower writes, “In a move that demonstrates more boundless gall than the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration used the increase in underground mine deaths that has occurred on their watch, as a reason to remove restrictions on mountaintop removal mining … Under the pretense of safety, they’re out to expand the very kind of mining that led to the greatest coal mining disaster of the last fifty years, a disaster that killed 125 people who weren’t even in the mine.”
  • Robert Fisk on the forgotten first holocaust of the 20th century.
  • The Independent has an interesting profile of Bertrand Delanoë, the popular, openly gay mayor of Paris, who has recently succeeded in bringing pedal power to the streets of Paris. “His popularity has been boosted in recent weeks by the immense success of a cheap, self-service bicycle scheme, which has transformed Paris into a kind of Gallic Amsterdam … His Vélib scheme, which has put a rank of self-service, cheap bikes on almost every street corner, is a classic Delanoë operation. The cost to bike-users is minimal for short hires. The cost to the tax-payer is zero. The service is subsidised by the J C Decaux street amenities company in return for scores of new advertising sites in the capital.”
  • THE PINK SECTION: Iowa judge Robert B. Hanson strikes down state law banning gay marriage. And delivers this wonderfully clear and sensible statement: “This court has yet to hear any convincing argument as to how excluding same-sex couples from getting married promotes responsible reproduction in general or by different-sex couples in particular. So far as this court can tell (the law) operates only to harm same-sex couples and their children.” Yep, that’s pretty much the deal.
  • On a related note, it turns out civil unions aren’t a new invention — they go back at least 600 years. “For example, in late medieval France, the term affrèrement — roughly translated as brotherment — was used to refer to a certain type of legal contract, which also existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe. These documents provided the foundation for non-nuclear households of many types and shared many characteristics with marriage contracts.” Click through for much more historical context than I can cram into one bullet point.
  • THE GREEN SECTION: As the anti-bottled water movement builds momentum, a Slate writer has reviewed various reusable water bottles to see which are most practical and efficient. There’s some great follow-up discussion with the author of the article on the WaPo site, touching on various aspects of the bottled water issue.

  • Now we know what dinosaurs wore to their proms! “Ancient pollen plucked from the back of a fossilised bee suggests orchids may first have bloomed beneath the feet of the dinosaurs. Tests indicate that the plants first arose between 76m and 84m years ago, meaning they are much older than many scientists previously believed.”
  • Silence=Death: A multinational energy company called RWE is planning to destroy lakes near Oxfordshire in the UK by filling them in with 60,000 tons of waste material from its power plant. Now a retired physicist turned activist who was trying to save the lakes has been bullied into silence by a high court injunction on behalf of the power company.
  • One of the rare birds of prey that are being reintroduced to Ireland, in an effort to restore their populations, has already been shot and killed.
  • Itchmo has a post about the weirdly arbitrary local laws that limit how many pets people can own.
  • TEEVEE: “Ziggy Tardis”? British tabloid The Sun claims Bowie will appear in Doctor Who. The NME isn’t buying it, but has some fun with the idea anyway. And BBC News has a denial from Bowie, calling it “absolute tish and tosh,” which sounds like it would be the most British vodka cocktail ever.
  • Good for Tammy Lynn Michaels. I’ve always thought she’s amazingly talented (she was always one of the best things about Popular, the supposedly-for-high-school-kids show that was in reality targeted at the comedic sensibilities of gay men over a certain age, and which not enough of the right people discovered in time to watch).
  • HEALTH: The American Cancer society announces that it will be using its entire $15 million advertising budget for the coming year to focus on the US health insurance crisis. “One features images of uninsured cancer patients, appearing hollow and fearful. ‘This is what a health care crisis looks like to the American Cancer Society,’ the narrator begins. ‘We’re making progress, but it’s not enough if people don’t have access to the care that could save their lives.’ ” The linked article also notes that, “A 2003 study estimated that one of every 10 cancer patients was uninsured.”
  • Newly released White House emails reveal how former Surgeon General Richard Carmona was pressured to politicize his office to promote the Bush agenda. Carmona had previously testified to Congress that “he was ordered to say Bush’s name three times in every page when making speeches and said he has told not to speak out about certain types of controversial research, including stem cell research.”
  • COMICS: Tom the Dancing Bug: U.S. recalls thousands of bombs after discovering they may be harmful to children.
  • Tom Toles: What’s in Bush’s box.
  • Tom Tomorrow’s rude awakening.
  • Candorville: Laugh Track hits the unemployment office.
  • Not sure if Bob Geiger is going to keep doing his Saturday cartoon roundup, since apparently he’s going to take a break from blogging for a while. At any rate, here’s one more installment to enjoy.

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Review: Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin

August 28th, 2007 · Books, Culture, Fiction, Film, HIV/AIDS, LGBT, Lit, Reviews, TV

Michael Tolliver LivesI just finished reading Armistead Maupin’s newest book, Michael Tolliver Lives — well, inhaling it really, because reading Michael Tolliver Lives is less like reading a novel than it is like opening a richly detailed letter from an old friend you inexplicably lost touch with about 15 years ago, and suddenly here he is giving you all the good dish on various people you used to know and have been missing and wondering about the whole time.

So yeah, it’s a fast read, and my only real complaint is that it’s over so soon.

Maupin has gone to some pains to say that this is not a seventh book of the Tales of the City series — but I think that’s mainly expectations-lowering. (And according to Wikipedia, Maupin has already backpedaled on that point.) It’s true that the style of the book is different from the six Tales books — it’s less dense with plotting, more relaxed and realistic. There are no secret cults or embedded murder mysteries to keep the pages turning this time out. But I think that’s actually to its credit — with Michael Tolliver Lives, Maupin is content to let his characters and their believable lives carry the story, instead of throwing in sensationalistic plot elements to make it feel epic.

Or put it like this: Instead of getting embroiled in the story, this time Michael and his friends are the story.

At any rate, in terms of the things that matter — characters and continuity — it’s very much part of the series. Starting with Michael “Mouse” Tolliver himself, all the members of the Barbary Lane family turn up one by one. Anna Madrigal, bless her, is with us and adjusting her turban by page eight, 85 years old and coping with email spam like the rest of us.

Brian is not far behind, and we find out what became of Mona as well. DeDe and D’orothea are accounted for, and there’s room for some remembrance of Mouse’s first love Jon, who passed away in the earlier series. Even Mother Mucca gets a mention.

And yes, a certain disgraced former female protagonist, whom Michael can’t even bring himself to refer to by name for the first half of the book, appears eventually, and (spoiler alert, although if you’re truly surprised by this you should probably get out more) she gets her shot at redemption for her sins of the 80s by the end of the story.

There are some engaging new characters as well, including a laconic-but-lovable FTM transman named Jake, who makes a nice younger-generation complement to Anna Madrigal.

Maupin’s main narrative concerns the effects of aging on characters who were largely defined by their youthful outlook and energy, at least one of whom hadn’t expected to survive into his fifties. (Hence the title — Michael Tolliver was coping with AIDS when the sixth book wrapped up at the end of the 80s, and the miracle-working HIV cocktails of the 90s were more than half a decade away.)

Despite all this connectedness to the previous series, there were times when I actually found myself forgetting that the protagonist was Michael “Mouse” Tolliver for long stretches of the book, and simply picturing him as Maupin himself — since Mouse’s life at 55 seems to line up so well with what we know of Maupin’s as revealed in interviews and articles (e.g., his intergenerational relationship with his current partner), and Mouse’s current voice is pretty much indistinguishable from the voice Maupin uses when he speaks and writes as himself.

Of course I’m sure there are plenty of fictionalized differences, but the Mouse of the 00s reads as a barely disguised portrait of his creator. Which is not a complaint, since Maupin writing about his own life is on sure territory and has plenty of witty and compelling material to work with. It’s only occasionally jarring when someone addresses Mouse by name and you remember that you’re still in the universe of fiction rather than autobiography.

If you’ve already read the original Tales of the City series, this is a great book to turn to when you need a little literary comfort food to cheer you up. Take a weekend to unplug the phone and catch up on how time has treated the denizens of Barbary Lane.

On the other hand, if you haven’t read the earlier books yet, I wouldn’t start with this one — too much like eating dessert before dinner. You’ll enjoy all the revelations of Michael Tolliver Lives much more if you already know and love the characters first. I’d recommend just picking up the first book and diving in.

In fact, you can even start by watching the PBS Tales of the City miniseries with Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis — you’ll be well primed to read the books after that. (Be aware though, that according to the customer reviews on Amazon, the DVD version is censored with overdubbed “clean” language despite the claim on the box that it’s the original unedited Senator-shocking version that ran on PBS. So, if you want to see it as it originally aired, you should probably try to dig up a VHS copy if you can. Although apparently even that isn’t a total guarantee — depending on what edition you get, the tapes could be “cleaned up,” too. But at least I can say that the VHS versions I rented from the Specialty Video in Andersonville back in the 90s were intact, so possibly the older the copy the truer?)

******
UPDATE: I just found out there’s now an eighth book in the works. From an interview with Maupin in Entertainment Weekly:

What’s next?
Another book about the Tales characters. I’ve lived in that world for 30 years, even when I was writing non-Tales books. Whatever I have to offer seems to come through those characters, and I see no reason to abandon them.

Previously on Ocelopotamus:

• Roundup: Return of the Mouse Edition

 

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Daily Kos Diary: Gonzales Doesn’t Recall Resigning

August 27th, 2007 · Blogs, Comedy, Culture, News, Politics

Perfect.

Just go read it.

When you rip off this joke later you can always claim you didn’t recall reading it on Daily Kos first.

******
UPDATE: On a more serious note — on the front page of Daily Kos, Trapper John spells out what needs to not happen next:

The Gonzales Justice Department was really the Bush Administration writ small — a claque of incompentent cronies, bonded by dumb loyalty to their chief rather than the public interest, with no agenda other than pursuit of their narrow, selfish interests.

And that’s why we need to draw a very simple line before any names are floated for the AG vacancy: the Senate should not consider any nominee who has served in any capacity in the Bush Administration.

A Democratic-led Senate cannot allow this Administration to once again graft the cancer of cronyism to the head of the Justice Department. And while it’s possible that there are a few honest, qualified public servants toiling somewhere in the bowels of the Administration, Harry Reid isn’t Diogenes, and shouldn’t waste the Senate’s time in determining whether such a creature really exists. The hallmark of Bush Administration personnel recruitment has been its commitment to one, and only one, qualification for employment — unswerving loyalty to Bush and Cheney. Therefore, it should be assumed that anyone who has served in an appointed capacity in this Administration is loyal to Bush, not the Constitution. And that’s enough to disqualify any AG nominee.

Bush has less than a year and a half left in his term. Democrats control both houses of Congress. Given an opportunity to mitigate the historic damge to our Constitution, the Senate cannot allow Bush to have his way with the Justice Department one more time by installing yet another loyalist. It’s time for a fresh start.

Amen to that.
 

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Video: Fox’s War Drums, Colbert’s Water Fight, and Stewart on Bush’s Magical History Tour

August 26th, 2007 · Comedy, Culture, Foreign Policy, History, Journalism, Media, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, TV, Video

A few video clips from the past week: First up, here’s a scary video compiled by documentarian Robert Greenwald showing how Fox “News” is beating the drum for war with Iran … watch them repeatedly engaging in the same kind of propaganda and scaremongering they used during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

 
On a lighter note, here’s the long-awaited water fight between Stephen Colbert and Richard Branson.

 
Next up, Jon Stewart has the historical goods on Bush’s Vietnam flip-flop. Watch Bush argue with himself across time! 
As a side note, listen to the clips of Bush addressing the VFW in this video. Is his speech getting noticeably more slurred?

… and here’s some relevant follow-up commentary on why Bush thinks a longer Vietnam War would have been good for America. 
Bush with a veterinary degree? Somehow I can just see him setting up an office with Michael Vick, Bill Frist, and Rudy Giuliani. Vick would torture dogs, Frist would dissect cats, Rudy would kidnap ferrets and other small animals, and Bush would explain to everyone in the waiting room why it was necessary to destroy pets in order to protect their freedom and well-being.

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Saturday 8/25: Grigsby Award Ceremony for David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera

August 24th, 2007 · Chicago, Culture, Fringe, Neo-Futurists, News, Performance, The Partly Dave Show, Theater

David and EdwardIf you’re here in Chicago and looking for something fun to do tomorrow evening, I’ll be participating in an award ceremony and “gentle roast” (in the words of Live Bait Theater) for those stalwarts of the Chicago solo performance scene — and my fellow Pansy Kings — David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera.

The ceremony is being hosted by Diana Slickman (of The Neo-Futurists, The Partly Dave Show, and BoyGirlBoyGirl), and I’ll quote from the email she posted to the Neo-Futurists’ Yahoo Group:

Hey, ya’ll –
Just want to make sure that everyone knows about David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera’s award ceremony this Saturday. There will be readings from their shows, presentations by friends and colleagues, oh, and of course, cocktails. Come for the party, if you can.

Here’s the skinny:

Live Bait Theater began the tradition of a “Grigsby” annual award for
exceptional achievement in the art of solo performance in 2005. This year we are very happy to announce we have a double recipient: David Kodeski and Edward Thomas-Herrera. Please join us for an industry roast. Their friends and fellow artists will regale you with salty tales, bitter asides and sweet recollections of David and Edward’s amazing careers.

WHEN: August 25, 2007 at 8:00PM
WHERE: Live Bait Theater, 3914 N. Clark, Chicago
TICKET PRICE: Seats are $15 and include a pre-show cocktail reception. Seating is limited. For tickets call 1-773-871-1212 or more info at www.livebaittheater.org

Diana tells me that the cocktail reception starts at about 7pm, if you want to get likkered up before the show.

I’ll be one of the people “gently roasting” David and Edward, offering up some reflections on our days in the Pansy Kings. I don’t know everyone who’s on the bill, but I can dangle a few names in addition to myself and Diana:

  • Rachel Claff
  • Jeff Dorchen
  • Richard Fox
  • Merrie Greenfield
  • David Isaacson
  • Susan Karp
  • Steve Seddon
  • … and more!

And I assume that David and Edward will be there. (I can’t imagine them missing a cocktail party, anyway.)

I’ll show them gentle!

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Clip and Trailer for Todd Haynes’ New Dylan Movie, I’m Not There

August 24th, 2007 · Culture, Film, Music, Video

For those looking forward to Todd Haynes’ new film about Bob Dylan I’m Not There, in which Dylan is played by six different and very diverse actors, here’s a leaked clip from the movie with Cate Blanchett as Dylan and David Cross as Allen Ginsberg. If the whole movie is this much fun we’re in for a real treat.

 
And here’s the official trailer for the movie.

 
It’s interesting to read that Dylan himself has endorsed the film.

Via Andy at Towleroad, who has photos of the various Dylan actors, the movie poster, and more.

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Roundup: Fantasy History Edition

August 23rd, 2007 · Apple, Blogs, Books, Business, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Energy, Food, Foreign Policy, Health, History, LGBT, Macintosh, Media, Nature, News, Peace, Pets, Politics, Racism, Roundup, Science, Tech, TV

magical tower

  • Bush has suddenly decided that the Iraq occupation is kinda like Vietnam after all, but of course he’s careful to draw the wrong conclusions from the comparison. The article quotes American University historian Allan Lichtman as saying that Bush’s spin on the situation “is not revisionist history. It is fantasy history.”
  • On a related note, Mahablog uses an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to decode the war supporters’ weird obsession with Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain, and why they always get that history so very wrong.
  • If by any chance you missed the op-ed from the NY Times this past weekend, written by seven infantrymen and officers about to return home from Iraq, it’s a must-read. It’s not only impressively well written, but as Paul Rieckhoff at the HuffPo says, “Consider the tremendous amount of moral courage that it takes to put oneself on the line like this. Whether you agree or disagree with the stance these soldiers take, hats off to them for having the guts to write this piece.”
  • Via Eli, the Village Voice analyzes Rudy G’s five big lies about 9/11.
  • Sadly, No wonders what’s wrong with the brains of certain white conservatives who are obsessed with the idea that white people just aren’t breeding enough, and seem convinced that “dark-skinned people are involved in a broad conspiracy to have thousands of children who will be used soldiers in the coming Global War to Steal Whitey’s Flatscreens and iPods.”
  • Diebold changes the name of its voting machine division to Premier Election Systems. They plan to keep on making the same lousy, unsecure voting machines — they’re just hoping that by changing the name people will no longer connect their shoddy past with their shoddy future.
  • Netflix chooses human voices over email-based customer service, and Portland over outsourcing to an overseas call center.
  • THE PINK SECTION: Hollywood Reporter writer Ray Richmond writes about the uproar that followed his column about Merv Griffin’s closeted gay life, and how and why the column got pulled and then restored by the Hollywood Reporter’s Web site (while Reuters totally caved and yanked the column for good).
  • Popular and Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy has a new show in the pipeline called 4 oz., about the journey of a married man who realizes he’s transgendered. Brad Pitt is one of the executive producers and the pilot has been greenlit by FX.
  • New documentary in the works about the historic 1965 raid on California Hall in San Francisco, an important turning point in the gay liberation movement. Click through for the whole fascinating story.
  • And via Towleroad, we at long last have proof of the connection between male bondage and Barbra Streisand.
  • THE GREEN SECTION: An editorial in the Boston Globe today looks at our nation’s addiction to coal, pointing out the lethal accidents and health hazards it causes, while noting that “coal-burning power plants are also the principal man-made source of the nerve-system poison mercury,” and that “of all the fossil fuels, coal emits the most carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Forty percent of the US total of carbon dioxide comes from coal burning, mostly to produce electricity.” The piece concludes that “No other energy solution … takes a toll in lives and environmental destruction that is at all comparable to coal’s.”
  • Greenpeace blows the whistle on the Brazilian government for selling off precious rainforest as part of a housing scam.
  • Household flame retardants may be causing a rash of thyroid disease in cats.
  • Offshore wind farms are dangerous to whales and dolphins, according to a new report from the Whale and Dolphin Society.
  • BOOKS: It’s official — liberals tend to read more books than conservatives do. Pat Schoeder, now of the American Association of Publishers, expounds on those results a little here. The study doesn’t actually say that reading a lot makes you more liberal, but I will. Reading books makes you better at seeing things from more than one perspective, and the ability to understand different perspectives is one of the most essential elements of the liberal mindset. (Disclaimer: Reading “books” by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly won’t help you.)
  • HEALTH: Children’s resistance to new foods — called neophobia — may be genetic, providing an evolutionary advantage for both early humans and other animals by reducing their exposure to potentially toxic foods. It seems logical to infer that neophobia fades as people get older because they’re better able to consciously evaluate whether food is safe to eat or not. But then again, how do you explain that mouthful of pushpins I just swallowed? (They were so pretty!)
  • TECH: Doesn’t this sound like the perfect setup for a monster movie? Complete with this quote from an executive involved in creating the “artificial life”: “”When these things are created, they’re going to be so weak, it’ll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab,” he said. “But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen.” (You know that scientist is doomed in the movie version … )
  • I knew it. I just knew it.
  • Windows user tempted by new iMac. Meanwhile, it’s RIP, AppleWorks.
  • COMICS: This Modern World has Karl Rove’s secret plan to destroy the GOP.
  • Tom Toles looks at the difference between Iraq and Iran.
  • Bob Geiger’s Saturday cartoon roundup.
  • Candorville reveals the ultimate pre-existing condition.

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Jerome a Paris on the Politics of the Market Crash

August 22nd, 2007 · Activism, Blogs, Fair Trade, Infrastructure, Media, News, Politics, The Economy, Stupid, Trade

moneybagI’ve been meaning to point out this excellent diary Jerome a Paris posted on Daily Kos last Friday, entitled “Politics of the Market Crash.” Jerome is one of my favorite posters at DKos (and at the European Tribune), and when he’s on, he’s really on.

So even though I’m nearly a week late mentioning this, I didn’t want to just cram it into my next roundup.

Jerome starts out by making the point that what’s happening economically is a teachable moment (we’re having so many of those lately! They fall from the heavens like rain!)

The current financial crisis literally begs for the left to reclaim the political initiative and say out loud some hard truths about the devastating economic policies of the past 25 years inflicted upon the world by Reagan and Thatcher with the support of the neo-libs and the rightwing noise machine.

Here are a few of the destructive philosophies Jerome identifies as root causes of our current crisis:

• the ideology of greed (this is the core of the conservative talking point: the idea that being selfish is somehow good for others as it creates more wealth, and thus that unregulated markets are good for society);
• the idea that only financial valuations give worth to anything (again, the cult of the dollar, and the underlying notion that trying to get rich is a good thing for society);
• the notion that wage inflation is bad but not asset price inflation (money going to the poor is bad, money going to the rich is good);
• the shockingly lax monetary policy of the past decade (when markets go up, fuelled by what is essentially easy public money, it’s capitalism at work; when markets go down, because of poor investments by the rich, it’s a systemic crisis and the rich need to be bailed out or else);

… among others.

He also suggests a few positive messages we can use to counter the toxic ones above, including:

• Wealth is not defined by how the richest fare, and should not be counted via how much they accumulate, but only by how the poorest amongst us are doing.
• Society is not doing well when the rich get richer, but when communities care for their members, leave no one behind, and do not focus exclusively on how much money one has to rank and judge members. Richer does not mean better. Together is better.
• Things built to last are the most valuable, even if they create no profit today. Infrastructure, education, careful nurturing of rare resources are investments that pay for all in the long run and can be handed over to future generations. Many government tasks are investments, not costs.

There’s more, and I do recommend reading the whole darn thing.
 

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Uganda Burning: Anti-Gay Bigots Rally to Keep Hatred Alive

August 21st, 2007 · Culture, Human Rights, Journalism, LGBT, Media, News, Politics, Religion

Uganda mapAnti-gay bigots in Uganda rallied today in support of the country’s draconic anti-gay laws (which punish “sodomy” with life imprisonment), carrying signs saying charming things like “Arrest all homos.”

They also howled for the firing of a reporter who dared to write an objective story about the experiences of gay people in Uganda, calling her a “homo propagandist.”

One of the head haters had this to say:

“We are fighting against the fresh campaign for homosexuality and lesbianism in this country,” said organiser and pastor Martin Sempa. “Homosexuality and lesbianism break three laws; the laws in the Bible and the Koran, the laws of nature and the laws of the land, the Ugandan Constitution.”

Apparently this particular genius either can’t count any higher than three, or thinks that the Bible and the Koran are somehow indistinguishable as texts. Either way he’s not exactly bright enough to read by.

And it’s bad enough when hate groups try to disguise their prejudice as piety, but there’s certainly no reason for the media to help them do it. For example, this story’s lead says:

Christian groups in Uganda held a protest rally on Tuesday against what they called an orchestrated promotion of gays and lesbians in the country.

It’s always frustrating when news stories refer to homophobes as “Christian groups” — both in the US and elsewhere — as if they were somehow representative of all Christians. Call them fundamentalists, call them religious conservatives (or better yet religious extremists), but don’t slander all Christians by uncritically passing along the false idea that these people are somehow being true to the teachings of Jesus, because they’re not — they’re just using the Bible as camouflage for their own hatred. (If they really cared about the Bible, they might pay better attention to certain passages about not casting stones and judging not lest ye be judged.)

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Review: Crowded House in Chicago, August 19, 2007, with Liam Finn

August 20th, 2007 · Culture, Music, New Wave, Online Communities, Reviews, Video

Liam Finn in SpacelandCrowded Freaking House, man.

Crowded Freaking House.

Last night’s show here in Chicago was everything I wanted it to be, with a few very pleasant surprises along the way.

In fact, the only downside to the evening was that it had to take place at the odious and uncomfortable House of Blurgggh (complete with worse and ruder security than I’ve dealt with at many airports).

Before and after the show, I enjoyed hanging out and talking with some old friends from the “Tongue in the Mail” Crowded House mailing list, which I stopped being able to keep up with several years ago — but I still have fond memories of the Finn-fan community.

Neil’s voice was a little husky, which he even commented on at one point, but the power was all there and the band did justice to a generous setlist of new and old songs, with no less than two encores.

From the new album Time on Earth they did “Transit Lounge,” “Don’t Stop Now,” “She Called Up,” “Silent House,” “English Trees,” and “People Are Like Suns.”

And they did my all-time favorite, “Distant Sun,” and it was blinding. I don’t pretend to know what you want/but I offer love — the line that kills me every time, and has on occasion reduced me to tears. It’s not just the line itself — it’s the placement in the song, the climax that follows it, Neil’s delivery, everything.

Some of the other songs they did from the classic CH catalog (from memory and not in order):

“Locked Out”
“Fall at Your Feet”
“Don’t Dream It’s Over”
“Something So Strong”
“When You Come”
“Whispers and Moans”
“There Goes God”
“Italian Plastic” (dedicated to Paul Hester, who wrote it)
“Pineapple Head”
“Nails in My Feet”

Overall they went very heavy on the Woodface, which you’ll get no complaints about from me.

And it all sounded blissfully good. The only song I keenly felt the pain of not hearing was “Four Seasons In One Day,” but as Steven Wright once said, you can’t have everything — where would you put it?

The second encore ended with “Better Be Home Soon” flaring into a manic rendition of “Sister Madly” that in turn morphed into an improv version of “A Day in the Life” by the Fabs. Which was every bit as memorable a closer as it sounds like.

The show also had a lovely visual design, with its own set that followed the 2D/newspaper-clipping look of Time On Earth’s booklet (and the “Don’t Stop Now” video), as well as lots of striking gobos and lighting effects and things.

The show was perhaps a bit lighter on repartee than some of the best Finn-related shows I’ve seen, but there were still plenty of funny and entertaining moments, everyone seemed in good spirits, and the music itself more than made the show.

But let me get to one of the pleasant surprises I mentioned.

I have to say, Liam Finn (Neil’s son, and erstwhile frontman of the band Betchadupa) was a revelation. He played with Crowded House during most of their set, and seemed like a strong addition to the group, even though he’s not a full-fledged member of the band.

But it was during his own set that he really shone, leaping effortlessly from guitar to keyboards to drums played with a jaw-dropping combination of speed, precision and ferocity. He has the trademark Finn sense of humor, talent in spades, and a confidently experimental approach to what he does — all trippy guitar loops and moonage-daydream theremin jamming.

This was my first time seeing Liam perform and I was prepared to find him likable and talented, but not to be fairly well gobsmacked by both his instrumental abilities and his charisma, which is an anti-charisma sort of charisma, which is what works so well about it. He’s not so much a great big affable showman, like Uncle Tim, or even a dry understated showman like his father Neil. Liam is (or at least appeared to be last night) the fascinating introvert you can’t take your eyes off, because he has these little flashes of extroversion that come without warning and throw you for a loop. I suspect him of being brainy, although maybe that’s just the beard.

Here’s a video of him performing for the Herald Sun, which is fairly faithful to what I saw last night, although of course it loses some impact compared to seeing it live. The camera doesn’t do justice to his drumming here because it turns it all into a blur, but at least you can hear it even if you can’t really see it.

 
A YouTube commenter said that when Liam drums he’s like Animal from the Muppets, which made me laugh because there’s a bit of truth to it — but you’d have to imagine Animal getting a partial brain transplant from Dr. Bunsen Honeydew because there’s a feeling of science and a charming dose of geekery about what Liam does, even when he’s drumming maniacally.

And here’s another live video, once again kind of blurry but still interesting to listen to. At about 3:52 he goes medieval on the theremin, which in concert is truly a thing to behold. And watch him break out on the drums again at the end.

 
And here’s the more polished and pretty-looking official video for “Second Chance,” from Liam’s album I’ll Be Lightning (US release forthcoming in 2008).

 
I like the part where he jumps around in the flowers. Possibly a little more than I should.

Listen to this song three times in a row and you’ll be hearing it when you dream, I just bet you.

The new generation of Finns is looking very promising indeed. I’m starting to think that instead of a Finn Brothers album, one day we might be looking forward to a Finn Family album. With Liam’s brother Elroy (who plays on several Time on Earth tracks) in the mix, they’ll be able to staff a full four-piece band from the Finn gene pool, all of them leaping around crazily from instrument to instrument.

The album cover at the top of this post is the swell live recording Spaceland Presents: Liam Finn in Spaceland April 30th, 2007, which was on sale at the concert last night. There’s info and ordering information for it on the Kufala Recordings site.

Here’s a little profile of Liam, from Australia’s Herald Sun, where Liam says about his one-man performances, “It’s about making it dangerous. There is not enough danger in music.”

And another one from the NZ Herald, which includes this great anecdote:

Neil recalls how at Coachella, Liam took over lead vocals on Don’t Dream It’s Over when a rogue fan of headlining act, Rage Against the Machine, threw a bottle and knocked Neil’s microphone off its stand.

“[It was] the great thing about having your son on stage with you,” says Neil. “I didn’t realise this at the time, and I kind of thought there was this little guardian angel out there, because I could still hear my voice. Liam had immediately leapt forward to his microphone and started singing the song.”

Liam’s official site is here.

Finally, one other pleasant surprise: Last night’s opening act 16 Frames (MySpace link) were very good, too — they have an album coming out this fall and I’ll be keeping an eye (or an ear) out for it.

Previously on Ocelopotamus:

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The Oingo Boingo Video Vault: Gong Show, Flaming Bathtub, and an Urgh! Outtake

August 18th, 2007 · Culture, Film, Music, New Wave, TV, Video

Via Gadget Girl, let us now thrill to this 1976 appearance by Oingo Boingo on The Gong Show, from the early part of their career when they were still called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. With bonus Bill Bixby!

 
(As the notes on the YouTube page point out, you might think that’s Danny Elfman wearing the rocket ship, but it’s not — that’s Danny’s brother Richard Elfman, the actual founder of the Mystic Knights. Danny is playing trombone.)

Since we’re Boingo-ing, here are my two favorite classic Oingo Boingo videos. First up, the song that made me an Oingo Boingo fan circa 1982, “Private Life.”

 
… I can’t even tell you how much I loved the Nothing to Fear album in high school. It was like a sacrament. I loved how Oingo Boingo’s music seemed to be made out of the unexpected stitched to the unlikely; the way big band horns would suddenly jump out at you in the middle of punky guitars and a ska beat. It felt like the musical version of the Marx Brothers’ comedy, a triumph of non sequitur, pastiche, and pure pandemonium.

And from the follow-up album Good For Your Soul, which I loved almost as much, here’s “Nothing Bad Ever Happens” … featuring the ever-popular flaming bathtub.

 
And another real find … this is an outtake from Urgh! A Music War, with Oingo Boingo performing “Imposter” — one of the songs that didn’t make it into the film. At the end, starting around the 3:35 mark, there’s some great interview with Danny where he mentions how The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo started out as a theater group, and how the speed and energy of punk saved him from The Eagles.

 
Note: This post has been a 100% “Dead Man’s Party”-free zone. Well, except for that last sentence.
 

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Mr. Blue and Kiwi: Exclusive New Photos!

August 17th, 2007 · Cats, Kiwi, Mr. Blue, Pets, Photos

Haven’t posted any cat pictures in a while, so…

First up, here’s Mr. Blue — who wants you to know that he prefers the way you look upside-down. It does so many good things for you.

Mr. Blue Upside-Down

Really, you should just start walking around on the ceiling and save him the trouble of correcting your appearance.

And here’s Kiwi, who seems to be taking after Miss Dragon Lady in the heliotropism department.

Kiwi on Sill

… Kiwi’s technique of using his paw for a pillow is almost as ingenious as tea-upon-ice.

 

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Olbermann on O’Reilly, Colbert on Huckabee, and Stewart on Kristol

August 17th, 2007 · Comedy, Culture, Foreign Policy, Journalism, Media, Politics, TV, Video

Keith Olbermann explains why Bill O’Reilly is no less than two of the three worst people in the world. (Hint: It includes defaming someone as being anti-semitic … who was actually attacking anti-semitism!)

 
I Stomach Huckabee: Colbert on the Iowa straw poll. Oh, and watch for the moment when the Governor threatens to break Stephen’s other hand. 
Also — set your timers now for the Colbert-Branson interview trainwreck. 
… And in case you missed it earlier in the week, Jon Stewart practically laughs Bill Kristol off the set, as Kristol scatters pearls like, “Things are getting better [in Iraq]. No one doubts that.” 
 

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Tea-Upon-Ice Now Available in Restaurants

August 15th, 2007 · Culture, Journal, Restaurants, Tea

It is astonishing sometimes, when you have a truly good idea, how quickly it will be adopted by the rest of the world.

For example, you loyal readers of Ocelopotamus will surely remember my “tea-upon-ice” idea from last week. (Idea is too small a word, really. Discovery? Breakthrough? Epiphany?)

And I’m sure you all have been drinking nothing else since I posted it.

Well, knock me down with a feather, but apparently tea-upon-ice is already being served in restaurants across our land, within less than a week of my inventing it!

I discovered this when I was out dining with a friend, and he casually asked the waitress for a glass of “iced tea.” I was so pleased by this small tribute to my invention that I didn’t even bother to correct him for getting the name wrong. And I was prepared to chuckle at the puzzlement of the waitress when she asked him to explain this unheard-of thing he’d just asked for.

Instead, she walked away without a word, and came back a few moments later with a tall glass of nothing else but my cool, delicious brainchild, tea-upon-ice! It came garnished with a large wedge of lemon, which I found interesting — it’s always fascinating to see the way others embellish and adapt one’s ideas.

I asked for a glass myself, and found it to be a fairly faithful reproduction of what I had created in the kitchen of my home, if perhaps made with a slightly inferior quality of tea. But still!

I did make a point of admonishing my friend that he was not to reveal me to the waitress or the other patrons as the inventor of this miraculous drink — I didn’t want a fuss made, or for people to think they must pay me tribute every time they enjoy it. I am not the sort of vainglorious creator who needs everyone kowtowing to him and thanking him all the time!

My friend, amused at my modesty, showed me that tea-upon-ice was even on the restaurant’s menu — they must have had them printed up very recently! — although this establishment, like my friend, had mangled the name and was referring to it by this slightly less graceful appellation — “iced tea.”

I suppose I must get used to that. When you give away an idea for free, you let go of it a little and must let others make of it what they wish — even if this includes calling it by the wrong name.

As I have reflected previously, it is a good thing for the world that I am not a greedy man. Someone else might be making hundreds, even thousands of dollars from a discovery like this, but I — I am content to know that I have transformed the beverage world forever.

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