Companies Demand Facebook Passwords!



"We're watching you"

One of the nice things about being a blogger or frequent blog commenter is that you get the opportunity to build an online persona and interact with people literally all over the world. This online persona may be close to your "real life" personality or it may be 180 degrees apart. You may decide to be totally and completely transparent with readers and co-bloggers or you may hold on fiercely to your "secret" or "online identity" and associated privacy.

Now imagine if a would be employer did an online search for you and found your Facebook page. They looked at the public views and didn't find anything objectionable: no racist jokes and calls for bloody revolution, no fond memories (and pictures) of Copenhagen orgies, no five star reviews of Tijuana brothels. You're good to go right? Not so fast. Let's say that the would be employer is not convinced that you're not hiding something. After all EVERYONE is hiding something. And this employer is a watchful, distrustful sort.

So the interviewer politely asks you for your various and sundry passwords from your Facebook/disqus/yahoo/gmail/hushmail/google/linkedin/amazon/etc accounts so that they can log on as you and review all of your private pages, emails, instant messages, associates, and what you've been viewing, reading or watching in your personal time.  

• After all, you might be a terrorist or worse, an ACLU member. 
• You might have friends of friends who said something negative about the company two years ago. 
• You might belong to "problematic" political or cultural groups.
• Maybe you've sent naughty instant messages to your spouse, significant other or friend with benefits. 
• You may have neglected to mention certain medical conditions you have.
• Maybe you got a thang going on with Mrs. Jones.

Like I said, EVERYONE is hiding something. But if you're NOT hiding anything then of course you won't mind the company looking, right? RIGHT????

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password. Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information..

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no...

Back in 2010, Robert Collins was returning to his job as a security guard at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services after taking a leave following his mother's death. During a reinstatement interview, he was asked for his login and password, purportedly so the agency could check for any gang affiliations. He was stunned by the request but complied.
"I needed my job to feed my family. I had to," he recalled,
After the ACLU complained about the practice, the agency amended its policy, asking instead for job applicants to log in during interviews.

Link 

Robert Collins

I think this is just a sad state of affairs. As so many people have been apathetic or quiet about the government invading their privacy without cause whether it be NYPD/FBI spying, FISA or Patriot Act or TSA searches, it only makes sense that companies would want to get in on the act.
I can't imagine working for a company that would even have the nerve to ask me something like this. The answer would be no. I would end the interview.  Of course I'm not currently desperate for a job and I matured before online personas had become so ubiquitous. What would I do were I younger or if I needed to get some money pretty doggone quickly to avoid eviction or repossession? I would still stand on principle and tell them to attempt airborne copulation with a revolving pastry. I've got to be free. But that's just me. How about you? You may need to think about this.

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply 

So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why  

He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"  

So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"   

Questions

1) Would you agree to give a company passwords to your Facebook, emails, blogs, etc?

2) Should this be illegal?

3) Do you think a company would ever have any valid reason to ask for this information?

Movie Reviews-35 and Ticking, Lucky, Attack the Block, Quarantine 2

35 and Ticking
directed by Russ Parr

Nicole Ari Parker is one of the world's most beautiful women. She's not a bad actress either. Given those two facts I'm befuddled as to why she hasn't had at least as much success as similar or lesser talented actresses like Zoe Saldana, Thandie Newton or Halle Berry. Good Roles for black actresses are hard to find though.


So when I saw her on the DVD cover I had to check out this romantic comedy. 35 and Ticking has an ensemble cast which includes people such as Megan Good (another actress of noticeable beauty), Mike Epps, Keith Robinson, Jill Marie Jones, Tamala Jones, Kevin Hart, Clifton Powell,  Kym Whitley, and Wendy Raquel Robinson. The story is older than dirt but I liked the execution. Or maybe I just liked Nicole Ari Parker. Either way this was a humorous movie with a few over the top events. It wasn't quite at the level of "gospel plays" or some of Tyler Perry's less subtle work. It's not really lowbrow but it's not afraid to occasionally go for a few cheap laughs. OK, maybe more than a few.

It follows the adventures of four childhood friends, who having reached their mid thirties, have discovered that they aren't quite where they'd like to be in life, either professionally (in some cases) or romantically (in all cases).
Phil (Keith Robinson) struggles gamely along as a hard working water delivery driver and extremely dedicated father and husband, who silently suffers and broods over his wife Coco's (Jill Marie Jones) intensely disrespectful and dismissive attitude.
Zenobia (Nicole Ari Parker) is an unmarried local TV sports anchor who is always getting hit on by obnoxious entitled sports stars like Nick West (Darius McCrary), but is so picky that she worries she may have priced herself out of the marriage marketplace.

Victoria (Tamala Jones) is married but it's not exactly a happy union as her husband Austin (Dondre Whitfield) has done just about everything short of taking out a newspaper ad to announce to the world that he does not want children. Victoria wants children very badly. The group's last member is Cleavon (Kevin Hart). He's a single man who doesn't really have romantic problems because he's usually too shy to talk to a woman, let alone convince one to be his girlfriend. There's also the little matter of Cleavon not having a job. He makes his living by legal but rather pathetic methods (this is the source of much of the movie's cheap humor and was actually used a few times too many). Mike Epps and Wendy Raquel Robinson also provide laughs as a perpetually battling and reconciling couple who live across the hall from one of the four major characters. Is there anyone who does deadpan better than Mike Epps?

 Yeah You!!!!!

I'm glad I saw this movie. It reminded me of Hav Plenty and Loving Jezebel. It's not often that we get to see black people on screen just being people with all of the good, bad, and ugly that that implies. Although the Nick West and Coco characters come close there aren't really any over the top sexual stereotypes. Watch for Clifton Powell in a hilarious cameo as an older man trying to impress his date. This was not a super high budget movie but neither was it a film that looked like something a pushy cousin is trying to sell you at Thanksgiving either. I suppose you could say the whole thing could have been an elongated Friends or Seinfeld episode but sometimes that's okay.  TRAILER





Lucky
directed by Gil Cates Jr.

The normal way to describe independent films like Lucky is to say that they are quirky. So, yes this is a quirky film. It's weird. It's offbeat. It's clapping on one and three in one measure and two and four in the next. It worked for me, not just because of the acting which is never anything but natural but also because of the writing which takes a LOT of chances. Not all of them pan out but enough do. So I thought the film was worth mentioning. Similar to 35 and Ticking, this is not a big budget movie. However because I liked the writing and acting I never noticed any other issues.


Lucy (Ari Graynor) is a plain jane executive assistant at an accounting firm. She is also the side dish of one of the firm's up and coming young partnership track go-getters. Lucy is a very material sort of girl. She's not deceptive. She's just open and honest about being attracted to male ambition, status and money.
Lucy's childhood acquaintance Ben (Colin Hanks-who looks almost exactly like his Dad) also works at the same firm but he's even lower on the totem pole than she is. He delivers mail and fixes printers. Ben has always carried a torch for Lucy but she only notices him when he's in her way. Well life is like that sometimes. Ben is a wimp and loser. Lucy doesn't go for wimps or losers. Ben has no ambition or status. And he certainly doesn't have any money.


But things suddenly change. Lucy's paramour thinks he can do better and drops her. This sets her off in a ranting screaming temper tantrum. Lucy is later terminated when she decides to crash a meeting chaired by her former flame so that she can share some highly unpleasant personal and sexual details with everyone in the room. But soon after her termination, Ben wins $36 million in the lottery. Dollar signs in her eyes, now it's Lucy who starts doing her best to show up on Ben's radar. This doesn't take long, as Ben is pretty desperate to have female intimate contact. He still lives with his enigmatic mother Pauline (Ann-Margret in a role that shows that for some women beauty fades with age but never quite disappears). In short time, Lucy and Ben are married and have a regal home of their own. For most stories that would be the end but not here.

As it turns out Ben didn't actually purchase that winning ticket. No, you see Ben is a serial killer who takes items from his victims, who are all young blondes, just like his wife. On their honeymoon, Lucy discovers this unpleasant fact about her hubby. The film's balance depicts Lucy's internal struggle between greed, morality, self-preservation and most irritatingly, love. It also shows that Ben, killer though he is, also instinctively understands some things about love and commitment. After all, isn't marriage about living together for better or worse and learning how to deal with another human being's failings? This won't be everyone's cup of tea but if you don't mind something different check this out. The violence is generally not explicit. The sound was pretty good. Sometimes that's a problem with indie films like this. I liked the soundtrack as well. Mimi Rogers and Jeffrey Tambor also have small roles. TRAILER





Attack the Block
directed by Joe Cornish

This is a British sci-fi/horror/comedy film that combines some social criticism with alien invasion and "kids save the world" storylines. This can occasionally be jarring as the film lurches back and forth between very explicit R rated violence, humor directed at or about children, understated sarcasm, and sci-fi cliches. It takes place primarily in and around a South London council estate, what Americans would recognize as "the projects" and what the residents refer to as "the block".

A multiracial group of teen thugs, led by Moses (John Boyega), mugs a young white woman Samantha (Jodie Whittaker), who had just moved into the block. The mugging of Samantha is interrupted by a car crash which heralds the arrival of a tiny (3 foot) alien creature, which is quickly and efficiently beaten and stomped to death by the gang. Sam takes the opportunity to escape and call the police. Eventually the police arrest Moses (his mates escape) and he is identified by the outraged Sam. However, while Moses is being packed away into the police van a new alien group arrives in force. These aliens are much larger and nastier. They're either the adult or male counterparts of the alien that was killed. They want payback. They kill the police and only miss killing Moses because of the intervention of Sam and his gang. The aliens start to rampage in and around the block, looking for the kids.

For these kids an alien invasion is just another day at the office as they already spend their time trying to avoid run-ins with bigoted police and violence prone older gangsters. They especially want to avoid the brutish Hi-Hats (Jumayn Hunter), the murderous local top hoodlum who is exactly who Moses will be in about half a decade or so if he doesn't smarten up. There was an unfortunate misunderstanding with Hi-Hats. So in addition to the aliens, Hi-Hats is also hunting the teens. Time will tell if Moses, his group, Sam and a few comic relief young kids looking to make a name for themselves can hang together and survive the night.

This movie wasn't as smart as it thought it was. There are more than a few holes in logic and pacing. I wonder if Boyega can avoid future typecasting as a surly thug.
The humor and violence are an uneven mix. But all in all it wasn't a bad film. I'd say it's a worthwhile rental. The accents were occasionally a little hard to get but weren't that bad. Lots of apparently current British slang was used but the meanings are generally apparent from context. The funny parts are funny, which is all you can really ask for from a movie, right? It's produced by the same people who did Shaun of The Dead so if you found that movie humorous you could do worse than check this one out. TRAILER



Quarantine 2
directed by John Pogue

Sometimes sequels are better than the original but usually not. Despite an interesting beginning and good premise, this movie wasn't as good as the original. The original itself was a remake of the Spanish film Rec. 


When I was growing up in the Pre-Cambrian era, flight attendants were called stewardesses. They were generally younger attractive women. Unfortunately (from my POV) before I was old enough to do anything about this, times changed and so did the demographic profile of stewardesses flight attendants. It happens. Quarantine 2 evidently takes place in an alternate universe where nothing like this took place. Two young shapely stewardesses are in the back of a limo being driven to the LAX airport. They are changing clothes and putting on makeup as evidently they are also groupies, who just did the usual activities to get backstage and party with their favorite rock band. I always thought that's what stewardesses did in their spare time and now I have proof.

We like do this all the time

The brunette, Jenny, (Mercedes Masohn) who is the only actor I even care to identify by name here, is tasked with watching over a young teen passenger (of course he's too smart for his age) who is visiting one of his divorced parents. She and her blonde partner in crime also make goo-goo eyes at the young doctor on the plane. The rest of the plane's passengers pretty much touch on all the demographic cliches-there's old cat lady, old couple, yuppie scum couple, fat guy, foreign couple, black chick, black guy, and maybe one or two others I've forgotten. BTW, if your name is black chick or black guy in a cheap horror film, you probably won't make it out alive. Just some friendly advice.

What do you mean no more peanuts!!!

The plane's co-pilot has a cold. The doctor has a case of rats (he insists they're hamsters) which he somehow got past security. As the plane is leaving LA someone notices that there was a quarantine at a LA apartment building and states how they're glad to be getting away from that. Of course they aren't getting away from it. It's already on board in the form of an infected co-pilot and someone else. This infection turns people into drooling raving berserk cannibals. In short you could call this "Zombies on a Plane".  Believe it or not if they had stayed on the plane for a while longer and ramped up the tension, this movie might have worked. But the claustrophobia and paranoia drops dramatically once the plane makes an emergency landing and so did my interest in this film. Jenny has to try to keep her head and protect her charge. She's dealing with zombies on one hand and government agents enforcing a quarantine on the other.  The first movie was better done. The camera work was more realistic and made you think you were there. If you like zombie movies this one might marginally be worth checking out but just barely. Masohn does her best with limited material.  TRAILER

Homeless Hotspots Coming Soon!!!

Have you ever run into a dead zone and are unable to connect to the net? And maybe you're too far away from a Starbucks or other Internet cafe? Or maybe your neighbor has shut you out of their Wi-Fi network?

Never fear. Just sidle up to the nearest homeless person in your neck of the woods. Because there's a chance he might be an actual "Homeless Hotspot". Yes, 21st century America is all about getting EVERYBODY plugged in and empowered. Be the change you seek in others. Yes we can! The world is flat!


At the South by South by SouthWest convention, an ad company BBH, decided to think outside the box.

BBH's experiment, dubbed "Homeless Hotspots," launched during the South by Southwest tech-and-entertainment confab in Austin, drawing complaints from critics who viewed the gimmick as exploitative.

In an interview with The New York Post, BBH chairman Emma Cookson said the company has pulled the plug and will not go forward with plans to continue the project in New York."We have no definite, specific plans yet, in New York City or elsewhere," she said. "This was an initial trial program.""We are now listening carefully to the high level of feedback, trying to learn and respond, and we will then consider what is appropriate to do next," she added.  

At SXSW, more than a dozen homeless people were outfitted with wireless routers and T-shirts declaring: "I'm a 4G hotspot."While the effort, which was not associated with the festival, was crafted to provide a digital connection for SXSW Interactive partipants and a charitable service to the city's homeless, outrage quickly gained momentum on social media and among homeless-rights activists.The four-day trial concluded on Monday afternoon, with the door left ajar to expand the project into various cities. But that's a no-go, for now.Users would ask the homeless hotspot for an access code, and were encouraged to donate $2 to their walking Wi-Fi zone for every 15 minutes spent online.

Emma Cookson: Visionary or Cruella DeVille understudy?

So I guess the latest plan to make money off the homeless cure homelessness won't work. So if a homeless man walks up to you and asks for $2, chances are he's not actually a "Homeless Hotspot" but is just a run of the mill beggar.  You should feel free to do whatever you normally do in situations like that, whether it's to offer the money, refuse, give a long lecture or pretend you didn't see or hear the man.  But on the other hand what makes this offer degrading? People have long hired homeless people to pass out flyers for strip clubs, concerts, political rallies and so on. You name it, someone has tried to save on marketing costs by using homeless people. It's not like Ms. Cookson was the first person to use this logic. I guess she reasoned that as long as people were going to be homeless they might as well make themselves useful. Were the people who were complaining about this going to offer a homeless man a job or place to live? Well some of them, maybe. But generally probably not.

Questions
1) What's your take? Was this degrading?
2) Was this an attempt at innovative marketing or a remarkably stupid idea?
3) If this brought more focus to the problem of homelessness was it a good move?

Book Reviews- Rising Phoenix, The Historian, Best of HP Lovecraft

Rising Phoenix
by Kyle Mills

This is what I call an airport book. It is quick to read; it's not super challenging but not a horrible story either. It's perfect for wasting away a few hours but it's not something you would kick yourself for not reading. The story is not too far fetched although the execution and characterization might need a little work. Then again it WAS the author's first book so who am I to be critical?

Anyway the story opens by describing two government law enforcement officials with quite different ideas about the proper way to interrogate suspects. DEA agent John Hobart doesn't see anything wrong with starting with a beating and moving on from there. FBI agent Mark Beamon isn't above smacking an insolent known mob enforcer but he is disgusted when he discovers his partner Hobart in the process of breaking a junkie's arm, primarily for kicks. Beamon turns Hobart in. But Hobart is a MUCH better political player than Beamon is and manages to avoid serious sanction by resigning while Beamon gets a reputation as an untrustworthy maverick. Fast forward a decade and change. Beamon is still just a few levels above where he started while Hobart is the VERY well paid security chief and troubleshooter for the right-wing televangelist Reverend Blake (think Pat Robertson) who uses the loyal and completely amoral Hobart for all those jobs he'd rather not know about.

Blake preaches against sin -especially drugs- and is devastated when he finds out his own son was smoking marijuana. Out of a sense of bombast and pride he starts to discuss with Hobart the best way to stop usage of illegal drugs. The completely pragmatic Hobart suggests poison. The Reverend doesn't want to know details but gives Hobart the go-ahead after publicly firing him.
Hobart recruits (evidently he had been thinking about this for a while) a group of specialists (and virulent racists) to poison the supply of illegal drugs (cocaine and heroin only). They intend to stop people from using drugs and if they happen to kill a bunch of minorities that's a bonus for them.  Drug use starts to drop but this is not popular with the Colombian Cartels or American Mafia (who are seeing their revenue drop) or the FBI (who are being mocked in the press). The FBI calls in Beamon to lead a task force (and be a sacrificial lamb if need be). Of course as he gets into the case Beamon starts to pick up a sense of familiarity about his unknown opponent's moves. The President is caught between a rock and a hard place as he wants to look competent while at the same time keeping an uneasy eye on the growing political support that the poisoning of the drug supply is getting.

As I mentioned this was not a great novel but I didn't expect it to be. The author is the son of a former FBI agent and has some useful insights into how that bureaucracy works. Unfortunately, except for Hobart most of the characters are pretty flat. I did like reading about the (ahem) ever so slightly different research techniques of the Colombian Cartels and the FBI, the rivalries between different law enforcement agencies and petty but dangerous office politics. The Mafia hoodlums and street hoods are not written that well. But the book moves swiftly and all in all is a fun read. Hobart is not a mustache twirling villain and doesn't do stupid things just to move the plot forward.




The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova

This is a story about an unnamed woman who is the daughter of a widowed history professor. One night while scrounging through her father's library she finds a strange book that is mostly blank but has the picture of a dragon in the middle and has the words "My Dear and unfortunate successor..". She shows this to her father and the not so dynamic duo (she's a teen and her father must be in his early fifties) embark upon an adventure across Eastern Europe and Turkey, in search of the historical (and current??) reality of that most notorious member of the Order of the Dragon, an enthusiastic but doomed defender of Christendom, Vlad Tepes, known better as Dracula.

Sounds like it would be right up my alley yes? Well no. This is NOT a horror novel though it has some minor elements of that. Vampires evidently do exist. This is an extremely well researched literary novel with lots of gothic, travelogue, and romance elements. I wouldn't say I hated this book but it just wasn't what I was looking for. You could almost say for six hundred pages "And then nothing happened". The author is quite talented but like all too many writers these days could have used a stricter editor. Her love of history, reading, and the peoples and cultures of Eastern Europe shines through.

Things change. Perhaps it is no longer important to some people that the city known as Istanbul which today is in the country of Turkey was not in its origin Turkish but Greco-Roman. At one time it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It became a center of Christianity and lore and named Constantinople. But it was savagely sacked, first most treacherously by Western Christian crusaders in 1204 and later by Turkish Muslim invaders in 1453. We tend to think of colonialism as something that Europe has done to others. But for centuries the Turks were the brutal colonial power in Eastern Europe. In some aspects there's still bad blood today because of this. Kostova fills in some details. But the characters and pacing simply aren't strong enough to really give this a great rating. It is being made into a movie. I suspect that the movie will be more entertaining than the book was. To be fair, if you are into the idea of conspiracies, secret societies and the like, you will at least be somewhat positively inclined to this book. Again, though, it's NOT a horror story. The obvious comparison is to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I love hanging around libraries, bookstores and restaurants no one else knows about. I love the thrill of discovering esoteric knowledge or new food dishes. But I don't necessarily want to read 600 pages about doing those things. The one character who DOES come across vibrantly is the beautiful and mysterious Helen Rossi, another historian, and the narrator's mother. Rossi's story and that of the narrator's father unfolds in old letters and diaries which are found. The joy, wonder and yet sorrow that we may feel when we read letters or writings of departed parents or grandparents is captured well here. It is always somewhat amazing and slightly unbelievable to me to look back through time and realize there was a point when you didn't exist and your parents had other interests. And of course, as the narrator discovers, there are some things about your parents that you probably didn't want to know.

The Best of HP Lovecraft

If you read a representative sampling of H.P. Lovecraft stories a few truths about the man become rapidly apparent. (1) He was a racist with an especial hatred for black people. (2) He wasn't big on dialogue. (3) He never wrote a short sentence when he could use a longer one instead or used a modern word when he could use an archaic word.(4) He loved New England. (5)The man was one of the most influential horror writers the world has seen. Stephen King himself wrote that "H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale".

Lovecraft came from a old American family that had fallen on hard times. Both of his parents suffered from mental instability and died in mental wards-his father may have had syphilis. His grandparents didn't properly handle the small money his parents left behind. Additionally Lovecraft had a nervous breakdown and dropped out of high school. As a writer he was constantly impoverished throughout his life. The yawning gulf between his real life circumstances and what he thought his race, intelligence and heritage should have entitled him to was a source of constant frustration to him and ironically was likely a source of some of his best (albeit most racist) work. Lovecraft was a somewhat shy scientific atheist who famously pronounced himself rather indifferent to sex. This dislike of intimacy and distrust if not disgust of the feminine pops up in all sorts of interesting places throughout his work and may be worth examining in some future blog post.

Okay. So what stories are contained within? Well the book is titled The Best of HP Lovecraft and it lives up to its title. "The Colour Out of Space" is pure sci-fi and foresees the effects of nuclear radiation when a meteorite hits an isolated Massachusetts farm. "The Shadow over Innsmouth" tells the story of a fishing town fallen on hard times that makes deals with evil beings from the ocean but in fact it's a well disguised description of Lovecraft's id fears about immigration and interracial mingling.  "The Thing on the Doorstep" is the best body snatcher story I've ever read bar none. "The Dreams in the Witch-house" ponders if advanced physics are merely catching up to what evil sorcery had done years ago. "The Dunwich Horror" is almost a parody of Biblical stories, with a half-human "savior" figure trying to bring his father, a God from Outside, back to earth, not so that humanity can be saved but rather that the earth can be "cleared off".

"The Rats in the Walls" shows off Lovecraft's profound debt to Poe, while "The Silver Key" does the same for Dunsany. "The Call of Cthulhu" is probably the best known story contained in this collection. An evil alien God that was ancient before humanity even existed has been trapped at the bottom of the ocean. But every so often the stars are right and he awakes and attempts to free himself from his watery grave. And so on. Lovecraft did write a few traditional ghost stories e.g. "In the Vault". In those he actually used more dialogue than was his normal practice and showed, or he would write shewed, a good skill at capturing the idiosyncrasies of Yankee accents.  Lovecraft was a materialist. Most of his evil Gods were "evil" in the sense that a developer destroying a habitat is "evil" from the animals point of view. The developer couldn't care less-that is if they are even aware of the animals impacted. If you are tired of horror, sci-fi or fantastic stories that are little more than exercises in trying to write the most explicit sexually and physically offensive material possible you might want to go back to the beginning and give this collection a chance. Of course you will have to overlook some occasionally unpleasant political points of view but the man was after all born in 1890. But for creepy atmospheric gothic AND modern horror, no one did it better.

Limbaugh: He Said it First!!

We all know that recently right-wing radio show host Rush Limbaugh said some viciously ugly slurs about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Fluke spoke before a Congressional panel to advocate for a government forced change in the insurance benefits covered by Georgetown University and Law School.

I disagree with Fluke's policy POV but that's not important here. What is important is that Fluke rejected Rush's apology (in part because she thought it insincere but MUCH more because Rush didn't back off his opposition to her policy prescriptions).

Bill Maher jumped in this mess to say that the apology rejection made liberals look bad and that he didn't like the tactic of going after advertisers to shut people up. I guess he would say that, having had experience of losing his "Politically Incorrect" show due to advertiser abandonment after he made comments about 9-11 that were, well, "politically incorrect". Brent Bozell, who you may have just heard saying the President of the United States looked like a "skinny ghetto crackhead", decided to launch a "I stand with Rush" website, and piously chastised liberals for trying to shut down free speech.

Well.
Hypocrisy all around folks. I don't like hypocrisy. I think it is part of being human. We all have it. But I think we should try to minimize it, not embrace it.
If you're going to get upset when Limbaugh maligns Fluke with ugly hateful language that is meant to insult and demean then you also have to get upset when Maher does the same thing to Palin or Bachmann. It doesn't mean you have to LIKE these people.  You may disagree with their ideas. You may think they are wrong on everything, not very smart and immoral to boot. That is a different thing entirely from calling someone a "dumb t***" or a "dumb c***". You may think that Carrie Prejean is wrong to hold that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. That doesn't mean that it's okay for Perez Hilton to call her a "dumb b****" or that Keith Olbermann and Michael Musto get to question her femininity or make fun of her breasts.

If standards and logic mean anything then they must apply to everyone. That means that Rihanna can't get offended when a Dutch magazine uses racial stereotypes against her and then turn around and use racial stereotypes against another woman. That means black people can't get upset when the clueless Republican racist of the day makes a racialized joke about Obama or Black people and then be quiet when a liberal Obama supporter does the same thing.

If something is wrong then it's wrong. It doesn't matter that someone is more popular so his words are heard by more people or someone else is sponsor free so feels entitled to say things that are raw. Those may be reasons why they are able to avoid certain consequences or their audience expects to hear such things. But it doesn't make it any less wrong.

To be clear I believe that the overwhelming majority of this ugly language does come from the Right. That's a provable fact. I do not think, to put it charitably that Limbaugh is a good person. I think that Bachmann and Palin are often misguided and regularly vile. But that doesn't mean that people should turn a blind eye to ugly language when it comes from their team. Or does it?

h/t Rippa
QUESTIONS
1) Is this a false equivalence between Limbaugh and Maher? 
2) Is it ever okay to call a woman a c*** or t***?
3) Where is the line between comedian and political figure?
4) Can you disagree without insulting people?
5) Do some people just invite or deserve insult?

Let's bomb Iran!!!

You may have noticed that Iran is in the news a lot lately. Israel Someone has been murdering their nuclear research scientists while various politicians in the United States and Israel and elsewhere are pounding the drums for war. The cause? Well they say that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb and will attack Israel. Therefore we (by which they mean the US) must attack Iran immediately otherwise it's just like 1939 all over again and we (by which they mean the US) are appeasing Hitler. The President, mistakenly in my view, spoke before AIPAC on Sunday, where he said that he was willing to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Netanyahu will meet with President Obama on Monday to presumably make more of these arguments and attempt to get even firmer commitments of war. After all, before the election is when Netanyahu's influence over President Obama will be at its peak.

There are many problems with this line of logic. Honestly I am too disgusted and too busy with other things today to go off into a long essay about this. I am trying to write shorter pieces anyway. So let's just stick to a few pertinent facts here.

1. According to the US NIE estimates of 2007, 2010 and the most recent, Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Period.
2. The same malicious mendacious miscreants who lied us into war over Iraqi WMD are currently saying the same things about Iran. Of course even a broken clock is right twice a day but given that the costs of war are immense and these malicious mendacious miscreants are known to be liars, one should at the very least check what they say to see if it passes the smell test. And if you lean closer for a good whiff, I think you're going to smell rotten eggs. Again.
3. Iran has not attacked the United States.
4. Israel has nuclear weapons of its own.

Netanyahu, a senior Israeli official actually had the chutzpah to accuse an AMERICAN general of saying something "that served Iran's interests." Now I am hardly the most jingoistic fellow around but in my view if you're taking American money (which Israel is to the tune of over $3 billion in official aid each year) then you need to keep a civil tongue. Where the hell does some foreigner get off talking about an American military leader in such a way?

So to reiterate, a foreign client state (with the help of domestic warmongering neocons, chickenhawks, and neo-colonialists) is trying to bully the United States into greenlighting its attack or preferably making its own attack on Iran. Didn't we JUST go through this? As any dog trainer will tell you when a dog pulls on the leash you must immediately adjust its attitude so that it understands that you, not it, are the one in charge. Otherwise you're gonna get pulled every which way when you go for walks. It is easiest to correct this when the dog is a puppy. Doing so when the dog is full grown and stronger than you is quite painful for you and the dog. But corrected it must be. It's long past time that the US gave Israel a collar pop and stopped moving. The Israeli right wing doesn't seem to understand who's holding the leash in the relationship. Or maybe I don't understand...

Do I think that the mullahs in Iran are nice people? Of course not.
But the world is full of countries run by people that are not so nice. I don't think it's the job of the United States to run around overthrowing governments that it doesn't like.

War with Iran is not in the interest of the United States. We don't need increased gasoline prices. We don't need more body bags coming home.  We don't need to spend billions more on war. We don't need another occupation. And unless I missed something China and Russia are not on board with attacks on Iran. Feeling misled by the US war on Libya, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution on Syria. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Will they go along with an attack on Iran?

Something has gone very wrong in the American body politic. Another war of choice should not even be up for discussion at this point. I think that because of the volunteer Armed services, the incredible amounts of firepower that we possess and the good fortune to mostly have avoided battle in this country, most people don't have any understanding of the costs of war. Our idea (non-military) of war is something in which the other side does all of the dying. From a purely pragmatic point that may be a good thing but most of the people who think that probably aren't worried about their children being born deformed from depleted uranium usage, their daughters turning to prostitution to provide for the family, or having to worry about getting clean drinking water.

Am I the only person who remembers this quote???

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”


Questions
1) Do you think either the US or Israel should or will attack Iran this year?
2) What impact would a possible war with Iran have on the fall election?
3) Will an attack on/war with Iran prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program or make it more likely?
4) Why don't we have an off switch for wars anymore?

Music Reviews-Pharoah Sanders, Pirates of Penzance, Dirty Blues

Pharoah Sanders

Do you think that St. Peter ever got tired of answering questions about what it was like to hang out with Jesus? Does Robin become annoyed with fanmail wanting to discuss his days with Batman? Does Thunder ever wish just once it could show up before Lightning?

Well maybe. And maybe Pharoah Sanders should be recognized for the masterful musician he is rather than a man who briefly played with John Coltrane. After all, Sanders was and is so skilled that another saxophonist (Albert Ayler) once stated "Trane is the Father, Pharoah is the Son, I am The Holy Ghost". Sanders really is that good. His music ranges from down and dirty blues to post-bop to afro-centric spiritual  gospelized jazz (my favorite period) to free jazz/avant-garde. This last is something of an acquired taste. It REALLY is. If you don't like free jazz , some of it may initially sound like someone just making random loud noise on the saxophone as fast and as frantically as he can. I LIKE free jazz and a lot of it still sounds like that to me. It's really advanced stuff. The melodies can get very very abstruse. Sanders knows how to use dissonance effectively.

Still, along with Coltrane's widow Alice, Pharoah Sanders provides us a window into what Coltrane might have been doing if he had survived. He also shows us what magic sounds like.
His late sixties/early seventies music is my favorite period but Sanders has ranged far and wide across the musical landscape. If you haven't heard anything by Sanders his work on the Impulse label is the best (really the only) place to start. Sanders combined Eastern modes with blues riffs, West African rhythms with Black American harmonies. There was literally almost nothing he couldn't play and didn't play. Way before "World Music" was a genre and marketing tool, Sanders was creating it. If you wanted to know what Indian ragas would sound like mixed with African-American blues forms, Sanders had already answered that question in the sixties. He dipped back into R&B in the late seventies and eighties. Even jazz icons have to eat.

These are not 3 minute ditties. They are long musical pieces that should be understood and enjoyed the same way you'd listen to a Bach or Beethoven work. There's an awful lot of different things going on in Sanders' works. For a short glorious period in the mid seventies you could hear Sanders on free form FM radio. Those days are long gone of course. Sanders' best vocalist and usually the person heard singing here was Leon Thomas, who was also known for his avant-garde yodeling(!) and other strange vocal tricks. Many jazz musicians and more than a few rock ones (e.g. Santana) owe some of their music to Pharoah Sanders. If you're into meditation or view music with something akin to religious awe, you may find this music of great utility. There are still giants that walk the earth. Pharoah Sanders is one.
Prince of Peace  Japan(with Sonny Sharrock on guitar)
Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah  Thembi(Live with Hiram Bullock and David Sanborn)
Love is Everywhere   Astral Traveling   The Creator has a Master Plan
The Father Son and Holy Ghost (with John Coltrane)
La Allah Dayim Moulenah (with Maleem Mahmoud Ghania)

The Pirates of Penzance

With the leap year I thought it might be fun to give a nod to the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Pirates of Penzance(TPoP). For me, many of the best operas are sung in French, German or Italian. The English language TPoP is an exception to that rule. It's my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan work. TPoP shows that singers are just as much musicians as instrumentalists.  It provides beautiful contrast between the lows and highs of the human voice. Truly the voice is the most impressive instrument we have. Have you ever thought how interesting it is that women's and men's voices are almost exactly one octave apart? Clearly Gilbert and Sullivan did because they make great use of this fact throughout their work.

In Victorian times a young pirate named Frederic has just turned 21. This completes his obligation. He is talking with the pirates' maid, Ruth (his former nursemaid). Ruth had thought Frederic's father had wanted him apprenticed to a pirate and not (as he said) a pilot. Frederic doesn't much like being a pirate. But he thinks that the less than attractive Ruth is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Frederic hasn't ever seen any other women.  He wants to take Ruth with him when he leaves. Frederic also wants his pirate buddies to give up their wicked ways. They aren't really that successful as pirates as they always let orphans go. Of course all of their would be victims now claim to be orphans. Frederic feels duty bound to hunt down his friends once he's not a pirate.

A group of sisters (including Mabel) wanders by. Frederic sees Mabel and realizes Ruth wasn't beautiful at all. While Frederic and Mabel are making goo-goo eyes at each other, the pirates return and threaten to marry all of the women. They say it's a first rate opportunity to be married with impunity. The women boast that their father is a Major General. The (cowardly) General lies to the pirates that he too is an orphan so they let everyone go.

When the General gets home he feels bad about lying to the pirates but arranges to send the police after them. The women are excited at this and speak of limbs being severed and brave men dying. "Die and every Cornish daughter with her tears your grave shall water". The police aren't as thrilled since they will be the ones dying. They try to delay their departure, to the general's annoyance.

Meanwhile the pirates have discovered a loophole. Their contract with Frederic required him to work as a pirate until his 21st birthday. But as Frederic was born on Feb 29, a leap year, that means he won't technically have his 21st birthday until he's 84 years old. It's a paradox. Frederic takes contracts very seriously so he rushes off to see if Mabel will wait. He also tells the pirates of the General's lie.
Battle is joined between the pirates and police which the police lose badly. But the Major General commands the pirates to yield in the Queen's name. Apparently the pirates are all renegade (but patriotic) nobles. All's well that ends well and everyone gets married.

This work has an example of a patter song in Modern Major General,(which most people are familiar with) and plenty of other interesting musical techniques (round singing, double choruses, parodies of other works,e.g. Verdi's "Aida", counterpoint), etc. Notice that Americans "lifted" the music from "With cat like tread" for the song "Hail, Hail the gang's all here". Unfortunately some modern interpretations have altered the voices for certain parts. Should you happen to purchase this opera, make sure that whatever version you get has the parts of the Police Sergeant and Major General sung by bass or at least baritone voices, NOT tenors. Otherwise you might as well throw your money away.
When the Foeman bears his steel   I am a pirate king  All is Prepared/Oh Here is Love
Poor Wandering One   Paradox    I am the very model of a modern major general  With Cat Like Tread  First Rate Opportunity

Old School Dirty Blues, Jazz and R&B

Every now and again someone will go on a rant about how today's music is far too explicit, only concerned with sex and just too nasty to listen to. Usually the person venting is directing his venom towards rap and R&B. He often juxtaposes this crappy modern music against the more enlightened music of a past golden age when evidently men and women hadn't yet discovered their parts fit together and certainly never did anything so crass as write songs about it. Hmm. Well maybe. I am not a fan of much modern rap and R&B , mostly because I think the creativity, human element and musicianship is somewhat lacking but also because I'm older. But let's not pretend that all the music of yesteryear was by definition cleaner and more wholesome. Because just between you and me...it wasn't.

All of the below songs were recorded before 1955; most were done before 1940. Unless you just fell off a turnip truck and are a complete idjit, you will "get" most of the barely disguised double entendres. Sometimes the singer dispenses with pretense altogether and just lays it all out there. I  shouldn't have to tell you (but I will) that this language is often raw, offensive, smutty, filthy, sexist, and any other "ist" that people use to indicate something bad. So if this offends, don't listen. And definitely don't listen at work. I am NOT KIDDING about this. The titles provide truth-in-labeling. Some of this is dirty stuff. 

The next time some music snob starts to drone on about how modern popular music is just too raunchy, you can retrieve these tracks and tell that person to take that crap to some other sap. Humans have always mixed the sacred and profane, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. One doesn't necessarily refute the other. I'm not saying the songs below are great missing works of art. They aren't. But it is worth noting that that several well respected jazz and blues giants (Sidney Bechet, Tom Dorsey, Dinah Washington, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith) are represented here or in other such songs. Tom Dorsey, who later wrote "Precious Lord, Take my hand" and "Peace in the Valley" and was known as the father of gospel music can be heard here in a duo with Tampa Red gleefully singing "It's Tight Like That". Duality.

Get off with me   Kitchen Man Blues    My Daddy rocks me with one steady roll
Long John Blues   It's tight like that     Rubbing on the Darn Old Thing
Do your Duty   Preaching Blues    Big Long Sliding Thing
Press my button, ring my bell  I need a little sugar in my bowl  It ain't the meat, it's the motion
Shave em dry   My Pencil won't write no more Winin Boy