Book Reviews-American Conspiracies, World War II: Saving the Reality

American Conspiracies
by Governor Jesse Ventura

I like to look into the hidden nature of things. I'm certain that not everyone on this planet means to do good. And when the same events continue happening (like say political leaders assassinated by lone nuts who conveniently are killed or incarcerated without trial shortly afterwards) I like to look for a pattern. So I am probably among the target audience for this book.

If you think that the federal and local governments and corporations that run this society are too inept, self-interested or selfish to successfully pull off a conspiracy to elect your Aunt Mabel dog catcher, much less start wars and murder Presidents, if you think that anyone who believes that there are evil people in government like there are in any other institution is a "conspiracy nut", if you think that governments and corporations are generally organized and run by altruistic people who honestly have your best interests at heart, then this is most definitely not the book for you. Reading it will raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels. I wouldn't care to be responsible for that. Take the blue pill and go back to sleep.

But if you're ready to look into some strange happenings, if you are an open minded person, then this book might be right up your alley. Take the red pill, start reading and prepare to have your mind blown.

I was already familiar with many of the nefarious, and ahem, shady, dealings which Ventura discusses because that's how my mind works. But let's be clear. This is not a book that suggests that some amorphous "THEY" (Jews, Rosicrucians, Scientologists, Freemasons, Mafia, Aliens, Templars, White people, descendants of Jesus, Skull and Bones, etc) are the cause of all evil and are even now listening in to your phone calls, reading your email and blog posts, and looking through your financial records. Although honestly there probably are some government officials doing just that.

No this book takes the literal definition of "conspiracy"  (an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful or subversive act) and looks at some occurrences in American history and the present day where conspiracy does seem to have occurred, been possible, or is openly accepted to have taken place. We dismiss anyone who raises questions but we have seemingly forgotten just how much acknowledged evil the US government and/or corporations have done. If you had been around in the late forties or early fifties and were writing tracts claiming the US government was deliberately exposing unwitting individuals and communities to radiation or disease, you would have been called a communist or subversive. But we know the government did do that. If in the sixties or seventies you managed to sneak on a television variety show to yell that the US government was running a mind control/behavioral modification/torture program that used former Nazis, few people would believe you. But we know that the government did that too. And we know that the government lied about the supposed casus belli of the Vietnam War as well.

So there is really no reason to take this government at its word about anything. And Ventura doesn't. This book is heavily footnoted. Ventura has presumably used his SEAL, political and veteran status to talk to some people who may not have wanted to speak (and most who didn't want to be identified) and share his knowledge of how the military industrial complex works. But this is no tome. It's short quick reading and is written in a conversational style. It's designed to get you interested and go do your own research. Ventura even suggests further reading.

Conspiracies discussed include but are not limited to the Kennedy assassinations, MLK, Malcolm X, the possible real story behind Watergate, Jonestown, AIG and the Goldman Sachs connection, stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, the aborted coup against FDR, drug connections between contras and the US government, BCCI, and many many more. You may not agree with everything Ventura lays out here. You may think he's paranoid. But when he discusses his own tense and not quite willing "debriefing" with CIA analysts who were "interested" in how he had gotten elected to be governor, you'll know he's 100% behind everything he writes here. And if the fact that Senator Robert Kennedy was shot from behind in the back of the head, while Sirhan Sirhan was always in front of him and couldn't have fired all the bullets that were discharged, doesn't at least make you go hmmm, you need to check your "spidey-sense".




World War II: Saving the Reality
by Kenneth Rendell

World War II was the last major conflict in which the majority of European nations lined up on one side or the other and threw down. It also was the bloodiest war in human history. Fortunately such bloodshed has not been seen since though some people have certainly tried. This war has always fascinated me for a number of different reasons. The war started with bolt-action rifles in widespread use and ended with the dropping of nuclear bombs on cities. That's pretty heavy. 

On the other hand it was a war without satellites, without the internet, without computers as we know them today, with several other technologies that we take for granted now only in their infancy or still considered science fiction. More people who lived during that time are dying every day. In ten, maybe twenty years at most they'll all be gone. So all we'll have is memories, family tales, books and movies. But there are some other things we'll have, documents, letters, and photographs created by the people of that time. And those are, to anyone interested in history, worth their weight in gold.

The book's subtitle is "a collector's vault" and that is precisely what it is. I picked this book up for cheap in the bargain section for $13. That was quite a deal off the list price of $50. But if I had known about it when it first came out I may have paid full price. Well no. I am probably kidding about that. All the same there's a LOT here for the price. The director of the Museum of World War Two wrote this book. Noted historian Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the foreword. The book contains suitably aged looking replicas of letters, photographs, posters and portraits from various people in the war. This includes such things as African-American veteran Prentiss Hill's letters to the woman who would become his wife, Dorothy Hill, (The Hills are especially thanked in the acknowledgements) propaganda leaflets, top secret letters from General MacArthur, wartime cartoons, Roosevelt's letters to Stalin, instructions on how to load and cock single shot pistols designed for use behind enemy lines, photographs sent home by soldiers and many many more documents from the time. And these things are not just laid out with no text. There's tons of detailed text and photographic explanations. French women who married after the Allied liberation had no silk so they had to use wedding dresses made from US paratrooper parachutes. Fascinating. My maternal grandfather was a WWII veteran but unfortunately he's passed on. So this book provided some insights I was too dumb to ask about back in the day.
This is a must have book for any WWII history buff. The museum is located 20 minutes west of downtown Boston and schedules visitors in advance.

Pakistani Muslims Riot Over Blasphemy Charges

Here we go again. Let's just be blunt. There are a lot of things the US Founding Fathers and later judges and politicians got wrong when they created the legal and social standards for our country but refusing to create a state church and generally enforcing a separation of church and state wasn't one of them. I am not religious. The issue with most religions is that many creeds feel that they have a monopoly on "truth". I totally get that. I disagree but as long as they don't bother me I won't bother them. But in some countries, and Pakistan is one of them, there isn't quite a relatively robust separation of church and state. Religion may not run the state but it has entirely too much influence.

In the US or most of what's referred to obliquely as "The West" if I want to make a movie or write a book mocking Jesus or making fun of Moses or criticizing Muhammad I can do so. I may be insulted or mocked in turn but generally speaking no one is going to try to burn my house down. Police won't charge me with blasphemy. No one will try to shoot my wife or children. You can't say the same about Pakistan. In fact you don't even have to have been convicted of committing "blasphemy", just have someone in the majority group (Sunni Muslim) accuse you of having committed blasphemy and the lynch mob is ready to go.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of people in eastern Pakistan rampaged through a Christian neighborhood Saturday, torching dozens of homes after hearing reports that a Christian man had committed blasphemy against Islam's prophet.

Blasphemy is a serious crime in Pakistan that can carry the death penalty but sometimes outraged residents exact their own retribution for perceived insults of Islam's Prophet Muhammad. Pakistan is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim and people of other faiths, including the nation's small Christian community, are often viewed with suspicion.

The incident started Friday when a young Muslim man accused a Christian man of committing blasphemy by making offensive comments about the prophet, according to Multan Khan, a senior police officer in Lahore.

A large crowd from a nearby mosque went to the Christian man's home on Friday night, said Khan. Police registered a blasphemy case against the man after the crowd gathered and demanded action, the officer said.

Fearing for their safety, hundreds of Christian families fled the area overnight.Khan said the mob returned on Saturday and began ransacking Christian homes and setting them ablaze. He said no one in the Christian community was hurt, but several policemen were injured when they were hit with stones as they tried to keep the crowd from storming the area.

But Akram Gill, a local bishop in the Lahore Christian community said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men — one Christian and one Muslim — than blasphemy. He said the men got into a brawl after drinking late one night, and in the morning the Muslim man made up the blasphemy story as payback...Only in Christian cases will violent mobs punish the entire community for the perceived crime of one Christian...Two prominent politicians were assassinated in 2011 for urging reform of the law. The killer of one of the politicians was hailed as a hero, and lawyers at his legal appearances showered him with rose petals.

LINK

Unfortunately in places like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or other portions of the Muslim world freedom of speech and freedom of religion are not considered to be important human rights. They are often though to be dangerous foreign imports. Well the world is a big and often ugly place right? It's full of countries that don't have US values and don't want US values thank you very much. Why should we in the US or the more rational parts of the planet care what a bunch of Pakistani morons do? Well we should care because injustice anywhere in the world is wrong and should be challenged. Although the particulars are different the underlying human evil is the same. The majority seizes on a flimsy pretext to bully, humiliate and occasionally kill the minority. On that level it's no different than what might have occurred in 1920s Alabama or in several other places or times around the world. In-group, out-group: the names change but the game is always the same.

We should also care because the sorts of people who think that blasphemy is a serious crime are not content with either staying in the backwaters of Pakistan or having blasphemy laws only apply in similarly benighted places. No. Not only are some Muslim immigrant communities in Europe aggressively seeking to have blasphemy laws reinstated there, some majority Muslim countries are attempting to create an international standard blasphemy law.

Although I think every human being on the planet is of equal worth, more or less, every idea isn't. Blasphemy is incompatible with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the freedom to think what you want to think or say what you want to say. Although I think for simple politesse it's usually best not to insult people needlessly the fact remains that some people (a small violent minority?) in the Muslim world tend to take almost any statement about Islam that's not cloyingly complimentary as an insult. This is no good. There is no reason in my view to grant Islam deference that I wouldn't grant other religions. And a rioter's veto is not a reason. Pakistan's ambassador to the US was accused of blasphemy. It's insane. Blasphemy is a stupid idea promulgated by stupid people. The idea that your God needs the state to protect him is asinine. 

Obviously there are plenty of people throughout the Muslim world who recognize this, perhaps even the majority of Muslims. I think that most people are basically good. It's important that we stand firm against blasphemy laws and shine the light of truth on to what is essentially state sponsored bullying. I think that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and other such places need an Enlightenment or Reformation. But only Muslims can lead this. Until then it's critical that we reject and prevent blasphemy laws from taking hold in the West. I have no desire to write or say something that some loon finds objectionable and then have my life or home damaged. The people that support blasphemy laws don't seem to realize that they are doing far more damage to Islam's image than any "Islamophobe" ever could. How often in the Mid-East or South Asia do you hear about Christian mobs attacking Muslim minorities because they said something about Jesus? Exactly.

Kwame Kilpatrick Convicted in Federal trial

This is not exactly news which ought to surprise anyone but former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of 24 counts of racketeering and extortion and other crimes.  He could face 20 years in prison. I'm not jubilant nor am I sad. It's just really disappointing because he was someone who could have done a lot of good for the city of Detroit and maybe even the state of Michigan. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he got caught up in the trappings of power and more interested in how he could enrich his friends, family and business partners than how best to serve the citizens of Detroit. Coming on the heels of a soon to be announced emergency financial manager for the city of Detroit, this conviction doesn't bode well for those who argue that the city can get out of the horrible political and financial situation it finds itself facing.

Kilpatrick's hardly the only black politician to get taken down by the feds and he won't be the last. You would think that corrupt black mayors, representatives, and senators would learn that unlike NY banks and financial institutions, the Justice Department and federal prosecutors, do not in fact, consider them to be too big to jail.


So if you know that the police are constantly following you as you drive down the expressway, even though that might be unfair and irritating, do you obey the speed limit or do you step on the gas, speed up to 90 mph and start weaving in and out of traffic? I know what my answer is. And I know what Kilpatrick's answer is too..

But some people always have to learn things the hard way. A hard head indeed makes for a soft behind.

Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his longtime friend Bobby Ferguson have just been convicted of racketeering and extortion, marking an end to a more than decade-long public corruption investigation. The three faced a combined 45 charges accusing them of racketeering, extortion, bribery and mail fraud, among other things. Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, including five counts of extortion, racketeering, bribery and several mail, wire and tax fraud charges. On three counts he was found not guilty and on three there was no verdict reached.

Ferguson was found guilty on nine of 11 counts, including racketeering and several counts of extortion. He was found not guilty on one count and there was no verdict on another. Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on one of four counts. He was convicted on a tax charge. There was no verdict for Bernard Kilpatrick on the racketeering charge and he was found not guilty on two other charges – attempted extortion and a tax charge.

HBO Game of Thrones: Targaryen and Martell and Arryn

As we countdown to Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones I thought it might be fun each Sunday to share some quick reminders/background info on which ruling Houses are involved in war, what power they have or had and how they relate to one another. Obviously I intend to do this without spoiler information and hope that any reader who's familiar with the books will honor that as well. Otherwise I'll just have to cut off their heads. Personally. Because the man that passes the sentence should swing the sword. =) Hopefully, if you watch the show once the new season starts and all the names start to fly back and forth, this might help you recall who's who.

House Targaryen

House Targaryen originated in the East when it was part of the Valyrian Empire. Valyrians had access to greater technology and magic than the people of Westeros. They had dragons and though they did not conquer Westeros, they ruled almost the entire eastern continent. Eventually there was a cataclysm known as the "Doom of Valyria". The peninsula of Valyria sank into the sea. Many dragons were lost and the various eastern subject peoples rebelled/declared their independence. However there were both Valyrians and dragons that had survived. House Targaryen had established itself on the island of Dragonstone before the Doom. Roughly a century or so after the Doom, the Targaryen leader, Aegon Targaryen and his sister-wives decided to conquer Westeros. They only had a small army. But they had dragons. Aegon and his two sisters were skilled dragon riders and warriors, as you may remember from Season Two's discussion between Tywin Lannister and Arya Stark. Aegon's dragon Balerion was known as the Black Dread and was said to be so large that entire towns were in complete shadow under his wings when he flew. Some Targaryens had some immunity to heat or fire.

With one exception, Aegon and his sisters destroyed or subdued any king who refused to recognize Targaryen overlordship. The Targaryens eventually gave up their foreign gods and accepted the faith of the Seven. Their dragons shrunk and eventually died out. The Targaryens kept the practice of polygamy and royal incest. Brothers married sisters, aunts married nephews, and uncles married nieces. This was a religious and cultural abomination to most Westerosi but the Targaryens rarely concerned themselves with the opinions of lesser people. However this non-forking family tree caught up with House Targaryen as more kings showed signs of instability. Three centuries after the Targaryens crowned themselves as rulers, their mental frailty reached its nadir under Aerys the Mad, a rapist and tyrant, who murdered Eddard Stark's father, brother and several other men when they challenged him to account for his son Rhaegar Targaryen, who had kidnapped Lyanna Stark. The realm erupted in revolt. The war ended with Jaime Lannister murdering the Mad King, Robert Baratheon killing Rhaegar Targaryen and taking the throne for himself, and the Lannisters murdering Targaryen women and children to forestall any future succession threats.

There is one Targaryen still left alive. She has dragons, though little else. Daenerys Targaryen believes herself to be the rightful ruler of all Westeros, though she has never seen it. She was conceived in the rebellion's final month and has been on the run ever since. Dragons are the nuclear weapons of Westeros warfare. Few people would dare to oppose anyone who controls full grown dragons. The Targaryen words are "Fire and Blood" which is exactly what they have traditionally given anyone unwise enough to challenge them. Time will tell if Daenerys has inherited her ancestors' cruelty and majesty or their unsteadiness (her parents were siblings after all)





House Martell

One House resisted the Targaryen conquest. It wasn't the proud Starks or the wealthy Lannisters. It was the Martells, the rulers of Dorne, Westeros' southernmost region. Dorne is culturally and ethnically dissimilar to the rest of Westeros. They do things differently in Dorne. Dorne practices equal inheritance regardless of gender and has a strong tradition of female warriors and leaders. This is likely because House Martell was raised to ruling prominence by the invading Queen Nymeria, a Rhoynish warrior leader who was fleeing Valyrian expansion. She took a Martell King as her husband. Together they conquered Dorne.

When the Targaryens invaded, House Martell avoided open battle where the dragons could be successful but led a long guerrilla struggle that eventually forced the Targaryens to withdraw. The Targaryens invaded again and failed. Finally, the Targaryens smartened up and arranged marriages between themselves and the Martells. Dorne joined the realm peacefully. House Martell became a reliable supporter of the Targaryen dynasty.

Dornish people can range widely in skin tone. Martin has described Dornish as having skin shades similar to paler northerly folks or being "tanned","olive skinned" or "brown skinned". Dorne seemingly shares some features with Moorish Spain, Wales, North Africa, Italy or Palestine. It will be interesting to see how HBO, which has been willing to cast people of color, will cast Dornish actors. I think people like Ioan Gruffudd, Antonio Banderas, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Thandie Newton, Jean Reno, Freida Pinto, Naveen Andrews, and Wentworth Miller could all conceivably be a Dornish type. 

Elia Martell was the wife of Targaryen heir, Rhaegar Targaryen. During the sack of King's Landing it was Lannister bannermen, primarily The Mountain, who raped and murdered Elia Martell and her babies. House Martell has a well deserved reputation for neither forgiving nor forgetting. Elia Martell was the sister of Dorne's ruler, Prince Doran and his hotheaded younger brother Prince Oberyn. These past Lannister atrocities are why Cersei Lannister was opposed to Tyrion sending her daughter Myrcella to Dorne for betrothal and safekeeping. Dorne has ancient rivalries with The Stormlands (Baratheon) and The Reach (Tyrell). The regions have warred and raided for generations. Dorne is physically isolated behind mountain ranges and has more trade with the east than with the rest of Westeros.

The Martell sigil is a spear joined with the Sun. The Sun was the sigil of Nymeria and the Rhoynar while the spear was the sigil of the pre-Nymeria Martells. The Martell words are "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" which refers to the fact they joined the kingdom because they wanted to, not because Targaryens made them. As far as House Martell is concerned, no one can make them do anything.





House Arryn

Like House Martell , House Arryn rules over an isolated portion of Westeros, The Vale. The Vale is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by mountains.

Before the events in A Game of Thrones House Arryn was ruled over by Jon Arryn, an older Lord who had fostered Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon as youngsters. When the Mad King killed Ned Stark's relatives and friends (including one of Jon Arryn's nephews), he ordered Jon Arryn to send him the heads of Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon. Arryn refused and called his banners. The realm erupted in revolt with Houses Stark, Tully, Arryn and Baratheon uniting to overthrow the mad king. Robert Baratheon became King and appointed Jon Arryn as the Hand.

The widowed Jon Arryn married Lysa Tully, Catelyn's younger sister. He was significantly older than she. After many miscarriages, Lysa bore Jon a son, (Robin in the HBO series, Robert in the books) who is roughly six years old at the story's beginning. Upon Jon's death (and presumed murder) his son becomes the Lord of The Vale.

Because of Robin's age, his mother Lysa wields all authority as regent. The boy is sickly, weak and uncomfortably close to Lysa, who has refused to wean him. She has also declined to let Robin be fostered anywhere, which is the usual practice for noble youth. With the war, one would have expected that House Arryn would come to the assistance of Houses Tully and Stark, but so far Lysa has refused to call the banners.

The Arryns rule from their mountainous Eyrie, a place that is virtually impregnable to attack. It's hard to get to the Eyrie but it's easy to leave. There is a "Moon Door" which opens to a six hundred foot drop to the mountainside. Lysa and especially Robin seem to have grown fond of "making bad men fly". There has generally been peace in The Vale, with the notable exception of the Mountain Clans, poorly armed groups that rob and kill travelers, but who generally avoid direct conflict with the better armed and organized Knights of the Vale. The Arryn words are "As High as Honor". These words hearken back to their legendary founding as well their mountains, chivalry and religious dedication. 

Music Reviews-Otis Taylor, Willie King

Otis Taylor

I have written before about some bluesmen who eschew the standard stereotype of a drunk toothless man moaning about how his baby did him wrong. Otis Taylor is one such musician who doesn't fit that frame. He's not from Mississippi. He's from Colorado. In fact, in many ways his music doesn't fit the standard post-Hendrix or post-SRV framework. It's simultaneously modern while at the same time reaching back to very old traditional African-American blues, pre-blues and even African musical influences. Ironically although his music has had some commercial success, often appearing on film soundtracks, it sounds nothing at all like the more commercially successful blues or blues-rock music  with which you may be more familiar.

Although Taylor has written his share of tunes about personal relationships that didn't quite work out, even there his songs generally aren't party tunes or music just to shake your tailfeather to. No his songs on that subject matter are about men and women (or same sex relationships) that couldn't get together because the man was lynched or the woman died of a disease or is a ghost or something far different from most of the lyrics you might think of as blues. In fact even calling him a blues artist is limiting and maybe even insulting. He's like Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, in that blues may inform much of what he does but he's not limited by blues. He has such an individual sound that he's immediately recognizable. Like Thompson, he's very good at writing dark depressing songs though he's keen to point out that he's a pretty positive guy. His song "Rosa Rosa", dedicated to Rosa Parks is something truly sublime. One of his relatives was lynched and he wrote songs about that. Much of his music is explicitly or implicitly about the violence and harm that humans inflict on each other.

Born in 1948, in his youth Taylor did play in more of a commercially recognizable blues-rock sound and rock style, working with Deep Purple and Cream producers and guitarists before getting disgusted with the music industry and dropping out to do different things, including but not limited to being an antique dealer and bicyclist coach. He returned to music relatively late in life.

Father and Daughter

Other musicians I can compare him to would be people like John Lee Hooker, Ali Farka Toure, Miles Davis or Lightning Hopkins, who didn't necessarily play standard forms of blues, played around with timing and regularly ignored/avoided/rejected chord changes. In much of the earliest music that I've heard from Taylor he wasn't using a drummer. Actually I found I didn't miss it all that much. After all, rhythm is everyone's responsibility. See if you can find his release Reclaiming the Banjo in which he plays and arranges banjo music in a style quite different from the Euro-American bluegrass norms with which the instrument is most closely associated. As Taylor has pointed out in many different interviews, the banjo was originally a West African instrument. He says that his banjo style hearkens back to African roots and not Scottish or Irish ones. But of course he seems to be pretty familiar with Appalachian traditional songs, as you can tell from his version of the murder ballad "Pretty Polly". His music can put you into a trance not just because of the performance style rooted in African-American call and response riffs and vocalisms but because much of his work is drenched in reverb, delay and echo. It's like blues dub. Sound levels change and songs push and pull like a 59' Lincoln with a dying transmission.


Although originally he used another electric guitarist (Eddie Turner)to be his primary soloist, Taylor also calls upon violinists or cellists to perform solos, something extremely rare in modern blues, rock or pop music. And as a multi-instrumentalist, Taylor himself can provide some fascinating solos on harmonica, banjo, electric or acoustic guitar, and mandolin. Lately, he's been using drums. My favorite Otis Taylor song is "My Soul's in Louisiana". Taylor's daughter, Cassie, can often be found playing bass on some of his later releases. If you think you know all there is to know about blues or are just looking for new music you should check out his work. As Taylor has pointed out in interviews, in some respects he's only called a bluesman because he's black. You could just as accurately call him a folk or roots musician. He's still going strong.

My Soul's in Louisiana  Ten Million Slaves (Live with Chuck Campbell) 
 Bowlegged Charlie
Hey Joe(Live) Young Girl Down The Street  Rosa Rosa  Nobody Knows My Name
Resurrection Blues     Black Witch   Little Willie  Mama's Selling Heroin Pretty Polly





Willie King

Willie King was another man, who like Otis Taylor was redefining what blues sounded like. Whereas Taylor was doing this both sonically and lyrically and doing things far beyond the blues framework, King's music was much more sonically recognizable in the traditional blues sense. He was from Mississippi and spent much of his life in Alabama. He was also a former sharecropper and bootlegger. He knew hard times personally.
But lyrically King's music was far more explicit about racism and the struggles of black people than most blues was. This was because King was both a civil rights activist and amateur musicologist as well as a musician. His theory, based on both his own life struggles and talks with older musicians was that much of the older blues music, which talked about struggles between men and women, was actually coded resistance to the white racism of the time. Someone talking about going upside his woman's or her man's head would have been ignored while someone talking about mistreatment by white racists or capitalists would have come to the attention of the authorities, as happened to bluesman J.B. Lenoir, when he wrote politically explicit songs about Eisenhower, Alabama and Vietnam. Generally speaking it's always been much more more prudent for both your career and your income to write songs about women and sex than about politics and race.

But Willie King thought that the time had come to drop what he saw as unnecessary subterfuge and speak directly about the struggles of the black and poor against the rich and the racist. He also did a few relationship songs of course but a bit less than you might think. He named his band The Liberators just so you could not miss the points he was trying to make. To paraphrase that old Fat Albert line you could listen and dance to Willie King's music and if you weren't careful you just might learn something. And, whether the lyrics were political or not almost all of King's music was danceable. So if you're looking for long turgid solos as is common in much modern "blues" you won't find those here. His solos are generally precise and quickly get to the point before King drops back into the all important groove.

In my opinion King's best all around release was Freedom Creek. Virtually all of his best work can be found there. It's a live album which sees King calling upon such influences as Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed and most obviously James Brown with James Brown's "Payback" modified into "Pickens County Payback" and a second singer on most songs responding to King's guttural gutbucket singing style. The guitar tone is loud but not in a bad way. It's right on the edge of breakup but is nowhere near as distorted as what's found in most rock music. It's got a lot of clarity. He's a preacher, a shaman, a prophet and a prosecuting attorney. Imagine a gruffer Bob Marley. King just didn't sing about fighting power and helping people. He practiced what he preached. He created and helped run a Rural Members Association which was both a social welfare agency and custodian of African American culture. It did such things as provide legal assistance and transportation for needy people as well as running classes in music, quilting, woodworking and plenty of other traditions. He also started the Freedom Creek blues festival. He's passed on but has left an impressive body of work.

Second Coming  Uncle Tom  Stand up and Speak The Truth  Like it Like That Spoonful(Live)
Pickens Country Payback  Terrorized  I am The Blues  Ride Sally Ride (Live)

Adam Carolla: What's wrong with you Black people

Some (many?) conservatives seem to think that black people are naturally inferior. Now except on the fringes you probably won't find this expressed in the traditional "I hate n*****s. I won't hire them, work with them, live with them or marry them. This is a white (wo)man's country, dammit!!". Although the election of President Obama seems to have brought some of that closer to the surface, it's still I think, somewhat of a minority view, pardon the pun.

But what's not really a minority view is the idea that there's something wrong with black people, that they aren't quite on a par with white people.  We saw a fictional take on this in Django Unchained. Some people couch this in points about culture while others claim that there is real measurable important biological diversity among humans and that black people just happen to have gotten the short end of the stick as far as intelligence is concerned. This is diffused throughout the larger community, really throughout the entire American society. Comedian and commentator Adam Carolla recently gave voice to this view point.

"I want everyone to plan. Look down the road six months," said Carolla. "Yes they foreclosed on your home. That's why you need to have a network, a community, friends, family members, money put away. Don't have the kids."
"Think about it, Adam," challenged Newsom. "Half of African Americans in the state of California, and roughly half of Latino families, have no access to a checking account or an ATM."
And that's when things got hairy.
"What's wrong with them?" asked Carolla. "I want to know why those two groups don't have access. Are they flawed?"
"I want to know why [Blacks and Latinos] are struggling," Carolla continued. "Do Asians have this problem? Why do so many [Blacks and Latinos]? Blacks have been here longer than we have. What about Asians--they were put in internment camps. Are they at the check cashing places?"
"How about the Jews?" asked Carolla. "No problems in the past? Whose had it worse? Why are the Jews doing well? [...] Why do some groups do so much better? I'll tell you why: They have a family who puts an emphasis on education.

LINK

Unwilling immigrant

Carolla's questions fit in neatly with the idea that modern racism is minor or non-existent and that any problems black people have are almost entirely their own fault. It also raises the idea that blacks have less ability to plan for the future, think with their genitals and can't be trusted with money. Unsurprisingly these are the same stereotypes which were used to justify the enslavement and segregation of black people.

Of course to support this idea it's critically important not to discuss the experiences of a wider number of black people. You can't talk about "faulty family structure" when you're discussing situations like black mid level corporate managers who repeatedly find themselves training white co-workers who swiftly surpass them, black youth who are stopped by (and threatened, assaulted or insulted by) the NYPD more than white youth but have fewer guns or drugs found on them, black authors or musicians who can't get cover stories or reviews in white media, black accountants who discover they're paid less than someone white with less education or experience or my personal favorite, black job seekers who discover they have less of a chance of getting a job than someone white with a felony or who learn that their resume was rejected immediately because their name or zip code indicated probable African ancestry. Those things are real and are all going on today. And if anything black parents put more emphasis on education than white parents do simply because they hope that education can protect their children from some of the worst instances of racism in the labor market. This isn't always the case of course.

Although the issues of the so-called underclass , future time orientation, out of wedlock births, conflict resolution, etc are well known and important to solve, they are not the only problems facing the larger black community. I have no problem talking about financial mismanagement or other items which are in an individual's power to change. But there's more to life than that. Carolla seeks to pose as a truthteller when in fact he's just a bully punching down. Where is the oh so brave iconoclast who looks at the past 600 years and asks "What's wrong with white people?". Well chances are he or she won't get mainstream media access, unless it's to make someone else repudiate, denounce and renounce them.

 I'm not part of any "underclass" and I've still seen or experienced real racism, whether it's couched in the coldly polite passive-aggressive corporate style or the direct and dangerous "Why are you in this neighborhood show me your hands" flavor that police tend to prefer. 

As other people have pointed out, if you've been traumatized in some way as a child there's a slightly better than average chance that you're going to have problems as an adult. If you're been assaulted or raped it might be a long time (if ever) before you are as trusting of people as you previously were. If every time you stepped out of the house someone whacked you in the head with a shovel, you might become more fearful than other people of trying or doing new things. If you, deep in your heart of hearts, are convinced that God doesn't look like you but looks like some other group of people, how can you ever get right? 

I've said it before, here and on other forums. And I'm not the only one who's said it. But Black Americans only became legally full citizens post 1965 or so. It's not quite within my lifetime but it's pretty close. For the majority of this country's existence, black people were either slaves or non-people. White people could and did remove or prevent Black people from competing with them. Whether this was done by law (mostly in the South) or custom (more likely in the North) the impact was to retard accumulation of wealth and social resources. And violence or the threat of violence always played a part as well.

So there is no real comparison to be made with other immigrant groups, whether they be Italian, like Carolla's, or Jewish or Asian or any other group. None of them went through what black people in America experienced. None of them had their cultures stolen and mental framework destroyed. Basically what Carolla is saying is that he thinks Black people are inferior. He thinks that other groups could go through what blacks went through and come out better off. Well. I say that that question can't be answered unless we (literally) give black people the whip hand for 400 years and see how whites turn out. Let's make whites worship a Jesus that looks just like Isaac Hayes and see if they have any issues with self-hatred after a few centuries. I think that if this country were majority black and had been for ages, we very might see a Johnny-come-lately descendant of black immigrants making snide comments about what was wrong with the descendants of white slaves, while being totally clueless about his own privileges.

It seems like the new thing is to figuratively tear someone's ACL, slit their Achilles tendon, smash their big toe and then sneer at them for not being to run as fast as you.

Thoughts?

HBO Game of Thrones: Tully and Greyjoy

As we countdown to Season 3 of HBO's Game of Thrones I thought it might be fun each week to share some quick reminders/background info on which ruling Houses are involved in war, what power they have or had and how they relate to one another. Obviously I intend to do this without spoiler information for Season 3 and hope that any reader who's familiar with the books will honor that as well. Otherwise I'll just have to cut off their heads. Personally. Because the man that passes the sentence should swing the sword. =) Hopefully, if you watch the show once the new season starts and all the names start to fly back and forth, this might help you recall who's who.

House Tully

House Tully rules over the Riverlands from their ancestral seat of Riverrun. The Riverlands used to be ruled from by people from The Iron Isles but that ended a few centuries ago when the cruel King Harren the Black of The Iron Isles thought it was a good idea to fight against the Targaryen invaders and their dragons. After King Harren was roasted to a crispy crisp at his castle, the Targaryens raised the Greyjoys to rule the Iron Isles, and granted overlordship over the Riverlands to the Tullys, who had been prudent enough to support the Targaryens and revolt against the late and unlamented Harren.

The Riverlands are a nice place to visit and live but unfortunately they are not easily defensible. They are centrally located. Besides the aforementioned rivers, there aren't any natural barriers to prevent invasion. Many warring armies have always considered the Riverlands a great place to settle their differences. So House Tully, currently presided over by Lord Hoster Tully, has always been keen to ally itself with other Houses. Lord Tully wed his older daughter Catelyn to Ned Stark and his younger daughter Lysa to Jon Arryn, each heads of their Great Houses. Lord Tully hasn't yet arranged a wedding for his son and heir Edmure, while his younger brother Brynden has steadfastly refused all of Hoster's suggestions, leading to a rift between the two men. 

Brynden, more than anyone else, is the military leader of House Tully. House Tully supported Robert's Rebellion as Catelyn Stark was originally betrothed to Ned's older brother Brandon, who was murdered by the Mad King. Catelyn and Ned's marriage was unusual among arranged pairings in that they actually grew to love each other. Like most Houses in the South the Tullys adhere to the faith of the Seven.

After Catelyn Stark arrested Tyrion Lannister on her father's lands and did so in part in her father's name, Tywin Lannister sent raiding parties to kill, rape and pillage in the Riverlands.  After Ned Stark's death Robb Stark came to his maternal relatives' defense and since then it's been a major slugfest between the Tullys and Starks on one side and the Lannisters on the other. Robb Stark has made a few attacks into the Lannister Westerlands and soundly trashed every Lannister army he's come up against. But he doesn't yet have the strength to evict the Lannisters from his mother's homeland or properly besiege the Lannisters on their home turf. So as usual, it's the so-called smallfolk of the Riverlands who are suffering the most. As House Tully supports House Stark's secession from the Seven Kingdoms, as far as the Iron Throne is concerned they are also rebels who should be hanged, drawn and quartered. The House Tully words are "Family, Duty, Honor", which unsurprisingly is pretty much how Catelyn views her responsibilities and the world in general.





House Greyjoy

You might call this House the (insert class based slur for slow-witted unhygienic rural inhabitants) of Westeros. They rule over a relatively inhospitable area of Westeros, The Iron Isles. They worship The Drowned God (something alien to everyone else in Westeros). Their ways and cultures are quite different. The biggest sticking point between the peoples of the Iron Isles and the mainland is that the folks of the Iron Isles consider violence not only to be normative but also something of a religious requirement. A man who routinely obtains goods or wealth thru trade or business or purchase is considered, at best unmanly and at worse something of a heretic. The proper way of obtaining goods goes something like this. If you want something, you stab its current owner in the neck and take it. This is called paying the Iron Price. It is also why nobody in Westeros who's in their right mind likes or trusts the Greyjoys or anyone from the Iron Isles. It is why Catelyn Stark was so vociferous in telling her son Robb not to let Theon Greyjoy go or trust Balon Greyjoy. If you remember once she heard of the Greyjoy attack on the North she could not prevent herself from telling Robb "I told you so!!".

This House is currently led by the bitterly resentful Balon Greyjoy, who appears to have disinherited his last remaining son, Theon in favor of his daughter (Asha in the books, Yara in the HBO show). Balon also has some equally vile younger brothers. Theon's alarm over his sister's rise in their father's affection is part of what led him to join in on the attack on the North and specifically to try to outdo Yara by taking Winterfell.

The one thing that House Greyjoy is known for, besides being a sniveling bunch of psychotic backstabbers, is that they have perhaps the continent's best fleet and are considered to be Westeros' finest sailors. If Balon Greyjoy had accepted Robb Stark's offer and attacked the Lannister Westerlands or King's Landing, events in Season Two may have proceeded quite differently. But woulda, shoulda, coulda. It is impossible both culturally and psychologically for Balon Greyjoy to accept "gifts" or friendly behavior from other people. As we saw in Season 2 , Theon Greyjoy has good reason to dislike his father, as if it weren't for his father's failed revolt more than a decade earlier Theon would never have been taken as a hostage ward by Ned Stark. The Greyjoys see an opportunity in the War of the Five Kings to be independent of the Iron Throne and stick it to the Starks, whom they hate for suppressing their last rebellion.

Their House words are "We Do Not Sow" which is a reference to their utter disdain for doing any work other than killing people and taking their stuff. They rule from their seat of Pyke.