Teachers' Lounge

Racketeering for fun and profit

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

If war is a racket, then these guys must be racketeers.

One's creepy; the other's not

Not Creepy

"Buying the War" examines the press coverage in the lead-up to the war as evidence of a paradigm shift in the role of journalists in democracy and asks, four years after the invasion, what's changed?

If you missed the April 25th broadcast, you can watch it here - Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War

Creepy

The greatest jazz opera ever?

Or, the the greatest piece of music ever created?

Hmmm. That's quite a leap, isn't it? I mean, how many jazz operas were ever created? And then to compare this particular work with the greatest music ever penned...

When I got divorced and headed for New Mexico in 2001, I left all my record albums and tapes with my wife. Since then I've acquired many of my favorite albums on CD (and at the same time discovered some artists new to me such as Melanie Zipin, The Arcade Fire, and goodness gracious me! Patti Smith and Horses)... Paul Simon's Graceland, Cat Stevens's Tea for the Tillerman, Kiko by Los Lobos, Dread Zeppelin's Un - Led - Ed, Love/Devotion/Surrender with Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with Brian Eno and David Byrne, anything by Sun Ra...

I can live without Miles Davis's Bitches Brew. But my heart would grant me no peace until I was reunited with the one I left behind. On Wednesday, finally, after months of searching and waiting and canceled orders, I got my hands on a new CD of Escalator Over the Hill.

Truth Lies here maybe.

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Master Cellist, Conductor Rostropovich Dies at 80

Rest in peace, friend.

Riverbend is leaving Iraq

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

The Great Wall of Segregation

Previous Riverbend

This looks like loads of fun!

For kids of all ages.

Wetpaint

Neat!

Neatorama increased my hits here at the Lounge some ten fold (or is it ten-fold?) when they pimped my Meth Madness story.

I'd never visited Neatorama prior to this. I recommend it as a worthy companion to the wonderful Fark as a way to get to know our world a little bit better.

That is all.

Flatland, the movie

I've read Flatland twice in my life. Both times the concepts therein sparked my imagination, although there was much I didn't quite grasp.

I recently heard there was a film version. After reading a couple of reviews, one at Film Threat and the other at the Scifi movie page, I decided to place my order. Interestingly, the filmmaker lives and works in Huntsville, Alabama, my old stomping ground. He describes his guerrilla marketing techniques in this interview at Film Threat.

Update - Because this is an off-the-wall independent film, reviews are scarce. I just found a third at Revolution Science Fiction.

Don't think of an elephant

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"Mr. Insanity is an equal opportunity employer."
-Profit Fatty

This long and thoughtful essay should be required reading for ninnies of every political stripe.
Seeing the Unseen, Part 1

Seeing the Unseen, Part 2

(The author's homepage)

I'll be interested to hear his reaction to Bill Moyer's upcoming PBS program, Buying the War.

Update - The guy's got a book.

I can't even see the future anymore again

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?" Iacocca writes. "Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'"

Disasterpiece Theater

Previous outrage

Simple, yet complex

"Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq war to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I've watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9:00 to 10:30 PM on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes will actually save you time because you'll never watch television news again - not even on PBS, which comes in for its own share of criticism."

Record of Iraq War Lies to Air April 25 on PBS