Secret Society

All I can render is my body and my soul

The US Supreme Court today rejected the appeal brought by Maher Arar, a victim of the US's policy of extraordinary rendition -- which, in Arar's case, involved kidnapping a Canadian citizen and shipping him off to Syria to be imprisoned in a 3'x6'7' underground dirt cell and brutally tortured every day for over 10 months. Arar has been repeatedly and thoroughly exonerated of any wrongdoing -- he was an innocent man to whom unspeakable things were done, and done in all of our names. But the people who are responsible for these awful crimes have never been held to account, and thanks to today's ruling, they probably never will -- at least not by the U.S.:

"Today's decision eliminates my last bit of hope in the judicial system of the United States," Arar said in a statement.

"When it comes to 'national security' matters the judicial system has willingly abandoned its sacred role of ensuring that no one is above the law," he alleged.

"My case and other cases brought by human beings who were tortured have been thrown out by US courts based on dubious government claims. Unless the American people stand up for justice they will soon see their hard-won civil liberties taken away from them as well."

The refusal by the Supreme Court to take up the case means Arar's last legal avenue is closed in a decision that could impact on any similar cases.

Interestingly, though, it seems the RCMP (Canada's national police force) are investigating the role played by U.S. and Syrian officials in Arar's torture, and may lay criminal charges against those responsible.

As the Center for Constitutional Rights' attorney Maria LaHood said:

The U.S. should be conducting its own criminal investigation of the officials responsible for sending an innocent man to Syria for a year to be interrogated under torture, not covering for them.  Again, the Canadians are doing the right thing by criminally investigating not only Syrian officials, but officials from the U.S. as well. The Obama administration should look to the Canadian example and do what's right - apologize to Maher and hold his torturers accountable.

The RCMP aren't blameless here -- they were complicit in Arar's rendition, and Canada's top cop found himself having to apologize to Arar for the "terrible injustices" he endured. Apologies are all well and good, but nothing says "I'm sorry" like criminal indictments against those who ordered your kidnapping and torture. "The Mounties always get their man" or so the saying goes -- let's hope in this case it holds true.

Dive down deep down to save my head

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the incomparable Giblets:

Well there's a brand new political superstar on the scene and she's tough as nails and the media won't leave her alone and she's a rough-and-tumble Alaskan hockey mom and why are they asking all these questions and she is the pure reincarnation of the invincible Anglo-Saxon frontier earth mother and stop picking on her!

Read the whole thing.

It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means

God, the Ian McShane narration for this clip really is like the sprinkles on a donut made of pure win:

Be a professional

Again -- there are no words:

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.

Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School [emphasis added] in North Hollywood, California.

[...]

I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center [emphasis added] but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent.

Really, Josh? This is the campaign that only started vetting their VP choice after they announced her. You really have a hard time believing they screwed this up, too?

Don't believe everything that you breathe

I don't have a teevee machine, so maybe y'all can tell me... is Jon Stewart the only person on national television to actually mention the insane police tactics in St. Paul during the RNC?

If you haven't seen what's been going on in St. Paul over the past few days, check out this unbelievable footage of police moving in on demonstrators last night, courtesy of WCCO. Here's what's happening: police are ordering everyone on the street onto the bridge above I-94. Then they announced that everyone on the bridge was under arrest.

Wondering why St. Paul does not appear concerned about getting the pants sued off of them for such blatantly illegal police behavior? (As happened following the previous Republican convention?)

Here's your answer:

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Taxpayers should be off the hook for any damages stemming from claims of police misconduct related to the Republican National Convention under a first-of-its-kind agreement.

The deal required the Republican Party's host committee to buy insurance covering up to $10 million in damages and unlimited legal costs for law enforcement officials accused of brutality, violating civil rights and other misconduct.

Who could have possibly predicted that such an arrangement would lead police to act like they had carte blanche to engage in brutality, civil rights violations, and other misconduct?

So this ain't the end

I don't know what's more insane -- that the McCain campaign has decided to use Heart's "Barracuda" as Sarah Palin's theme song, or that Heart is trying to stop them.

I understand that like every other musician on the planet, Heart doesn't want their music associated with the McCain/Palin ticket in any way, shape, or form. But truly, I can think of no more appropriate song to play every time the GOP's self-described(!) "pitbull in lipstick," "Sarah Barracuda" (her actual highschool nickname!) takes the stage:

And if the real thing don't do the trick
You better make up something quick
You gonna burn, burn, burn, burn, burn it to the wick
Ooooh, barracuda!

[h/t Jane Hamsher]

You know what it's all about

Timing is everything.

WASHINGTON -- Jack A. Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican super-lobbyist, was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for his role in a corruption scandal that rocked Congress and the Bush administration.

U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle pronounced the sentence as a tearful Abramoff stood before her with his lawyers this afternoon in a courtroom that included both victims and family members.

The sentence was far below the 121 months that Abramoff could have received under federal sentencing guidelines but more than either the Justice Department or his lawyers had requested.

Huvelle said Abramoff deserved the sharp reduction in sentence because of his help in aiding prosecutors pursue other targets in the lobbying scandal.

Excellent.

The police state is too busy and the neighborhood's getting out of hand

David Neiwert talks to former FBI agent and current ACLU counsel Michael German, who says things that in a sane world would go without saying:

I don’t pretend that there aren’t people out there who have bad intentions on their minds. But if you can’t distinguish someone whose program is about videotaping protests as opposed to somebody whose program is going out and lighting things on fire, that’s problematic for the rest of us. Because if the police aren’t distinguishing between those two in their use of force, then none of us are safe.

[...]

The idea that just because someone is pointing a camera at you, you have the right to take the camera away or destroy the film or the tape – which is something we’ve had documented – you know, that’s not part of policing. That they would feel they have the power to do that is troubling.

Read the whole thing.

And while you're add it, check out Ian Walsh's take -- he's right that the current abuses are part of a disturbing, systemic large-scale pattern that doesn't get a lot of play, absent a big political convention to hang the story on:

So a society which is really concerned about liberty and freedom has to watch its cops very carefully. They can't be allowed to get out of control, to forget that they exist to serve civilians, not to shove civilians around. In the US the evidence is that the line has been crossed. This happens so regularly now that it's just expected. It's hardly commented on in the press, despite being the exact same behavior that has the press so excited and outraged when it happens in other countries like China. No major politician can be bothered to call it out as inappropriate. It's just the new normal.

You better set the mic down

Today's YouTube hilarity via Talking Points Memo:

After talking her up on-air, GOP strategists Peggy Noonan tell you what they actually think of McCain's veep pick.

Josh Marshall has the full transcript. I can't stop laughing at how thoroughly resigned Peggy is:

"It's over."

Don't think twice, it's all right

There are no words for this.

ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

[...]

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now [emphasis added] to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background.

Your conventional notions of temporality-as-usual are nothing to John McCain. You might think that a candidate who only initiates the vetting process in earnest after he announces his running mate is "desperate" or "reckless" or "insane," but that's only because your puny minds are unable to comprehend that just as John McCain is a maverick who exists above partisan politics, he also exists above the march of time itself.

The dolor and decay, it only makes me cranky

To borrow a meme from John Kerry: Candidate McCain seems to have worn himself out with all of that scrambling to reverse Senator McCain's previously held positions. He's getting awfully testy, and now he's even lashing out at his base -- the media:

What do you want voters to know coming out of the Republican Convention — about you, about your candidacy?
I'm prepared to be President of the United States, and I'll put my country first.

There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.

[Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?
I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.

But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...
I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.

Do you miss the old way of doing it?
I don't know what you're talking about.

Really? Come on, Senator.
I'll provide as much access as possible ...

In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]

Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
[Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.

I'm sure all of this unpleasantness could have been averted had the reporters only brought him a box of Dunkin' Donuts with sprinkles:

Ignorance is Strength

Good to see the GOP is making it official:

In an alley behind a non-descript row of brick buildings on North Speer Boulevard, and on the other side of a large metal gate with armed guards standing in front, Republicans have set up a "war room" in Denver.

In this west side location that is not far from the Pepsi Center yet out of sight from Democratic delegates and protesters walking downtown, Republicans will be crafting anti-Barack Obama messages nearly round the clock this week.

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the team of nearly two dozen staffers at the opposition headquarters will be "fact-checking" statements made by the Obama campaign and by speakers during the convention.

"Just consider this the Ministry of Truth," quipped Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

McCain 1984 2008: What Dystopia?

Via Amanda, though I think Eric Kleefeld caught it first.

You know, when I was a kid, I remember coming across this comic book, wherein the main bad guy, inspired by the vision of a glorious utopian future he found in Nineteen Eighty-Four, creates a jingoistic, nativist, literally flag-draped super-team (called "The Force of July") to help him bring Orwell's vision to life. His nefarious plan involves launching a private surveillance satellite which enables him to spy on every person in the United States.

It's good to see that the entire Republican Party appears to be taking their cues from an obscure comic-book supervillain.

I can't sing no song of hope

You know how John McCain has been running all of those ads complaining that Barack Obama is "popular" and "inspiring" and "adored by millions of people around the world"? Well, it turns out that one of the benefits of having people actually like you is that it's a lot easier to get artists to agree to allow their songs to be used by your campaign. While Obama has apparently commissioned new campaign theme songs from Joss Stone, Alicia Keys, and Jay-Z, McCain, on the other hand, is having trouble securing the rights to use any music at all:

Regular readers will recognize that this isn't the first time McCain has received the cold shoulder from the music industry. Earlier this year, ABBA nixed McCain's attempt to use "Take a Chance on Me" (a personal favorite) at his rallies. "We played it a couple times and it's my understanding they went berserk," the candidate confessed. John Hall, formerly of the 1970s band Orleans and now a Democrat ic congressman from New York, wouldn't let McCain use “Still the One." When hardline Dem John Mellencamp learned that McCain was blasting "Pink Houses" before events, he requested that the Republican cease and desist. Shortly thereafter, McCain settled on "Johnny B. Goode" as his signature song. "It might be because it is the only one [the artist] hasn't complained about us using," he said at the time. But Chuck Berry quickly came out for Obama. While Will.i.am, Arcade Fire, the Decemberists, the Grateful Dead, Macy Gray and Wilco have personally serenaded Obama fans at campaign events, McCain's musical support has been limited to octogenarian composer Burt Bacharach and one half of the novelty country duo Big & Rich. Even the reliably Republican Ted Nugent is no fan. "McCain seem[s] to be catering to a growing segment of soulless Americans who could care less what they can do for their country, but whine louder and louder about what their country must do for them," says the Motor City Madman (who has the same criticism for Obama). "That is both un-American and pathetic."

Attention McCain staffers: do not despair. I have your new campaign theme song right here. I'd be perfectly willing to license it to the campaign -- for a suitable fee, of course. I recommend that you play this stirring number any time the candidate takes the stage, enters a room, or appears on television. I think you will find it vividly encapsulates everything John McCain stands for.

[hat tip: Daniel Wolf]

You create the memory stain

Atrios has an A&R suggestion for Rick Rubin.

Here's little Tommy F.'s oft-linked audition tape, for those of you who do not follow the progressive blogosphere:

Also -- "This bubble is actually going to level the balance of power between us"? Matt Taibbi wasn't kidding -- "It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up."

Mesmeric full demolition

I haven't blogged on the conviction Thursday in Jose Padilla show-trial, because the whole thing is just too depressing. Almost 60 years after Project MKULTRA was launched, the US government is still inflicting Manchurian Candidate-style psychological violence on US citizens. The "enhanced interrogation techniques" they used are not designed to extract useful information from you. Instead, they are absolutely guaranteed to destroy your mind, just as surely as if they had lobotomized you.

There's a word for this -- it's called "menticide."

See also Hilzoy, Greenwald, Koch, and  Helmut.

Just when I thought that I was out they PULL! ME! BACK! IN!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....

Via Zuzu.

The camera never lies

Keith Jarrett addresses the audience at the Umbria Jazz Festival with his usual sensitivity and good humor:

[Via.]

This has occasioned an open letter from Daniel Biro. And Jarrett has been officially banned from the Umbria Festival.

Canadians behaving badly

I've never quite understood the bullish US market for Canadian wingnuts. It's not like there's no homegrown crop. But you've got Mark Steyn, David Frum, Rachel Marsden, Adam Yoshida, and a man I'm sure would be proud to count himself amongst such august company, the frickin' deputy leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and all-around wanker Michael Ignatieff, who's got some nonsense up in the NY Times Magazine about how he only supported the Iraq war because he's much smarter, more serious, and more intellectually rigorous than you are. So even though he was wrong, he was wrong in all the right ways.

No, really:

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once said that the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true. Politicians live by ideas just as much as professional thinkers do, but they can’t afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting. They have to work with the small number of ideas that happen to be true and the even smaller number that happen to be applicable to real life. In academic life, false ideas are merely false and useless ones can be fun to play with. In political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm.

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, transparently self-serving bullshit. In fact, as Matt Yglesias points out, "People with relevant academic expertise -- notably people who weren't really on the left politically -- were massively opposed to the war."

Despite seeming to promise a mea culpa, Ignatieff shows absolutely no self-awareness of how he came to make such a massive blunder. David Rees (of Get Your War On) gives the pretentious twit (and Prime Ministerial hopeful) an immensely satisfying pantsing:

Ignatieff's latest essay is what Latin people call a "mea culpa," which is Greek for "Attention publishers: I am ready to write a book about the huge colossal mistake I made." I imagine the book will be about a man struggling to do the right thing-- a man who thinks with his heart and dares, with a dream in each fist, to reach for the stars. It's about a journey: a journey from idealistic, starry-eyed academic to wizened, war-weary politician. (Ignatieff used to work at Harvard's Kennedy School; now he's Prime Chancellor of Canada's Liberal Delegate or whatever kind of wack-ass, kumbaya government they've got up there.)

In a way, it's a story much like Cormac McCarthy's recent best-selling "The Road." Both follow a hero's long march through thankless environments-- in Ignatieff's case, from the theory-throttled, dusty tower of academia to the burned-out hell-hole of representative politics. Danger lurks. Grime abounds. The narrative tension is: Can the hero be wrong about everything, survive, and still convince people he's smarter than everyone in Moveon.org?

I was excited when I first saw this new essay: At last, Ignatieff was going to come clean about his super-duper-double-dipper errors. I expected a no-holds barred, personal excoriation. In fact, I assumed the first, last, and only sentence of the essay would be: "Please, for the love of God, don't ever listen to me again."

HOWEVER. . .

The first nine-tenths of Ignatieff's essay, far from being an honest self-examination, is a collection of vague aphorisms and bong-poster koans. It hums with the comforting murmur of lobotomy. I refuse to believe this section was actually written by a member of the Canadian government, because that would mean Canada is even more "fuxxor3d" than America. (A little hacker-speak, that. There will be more; I finally bought the B3rlitz tapes.)

Read the whole thing.

But it's no laughing party when you've been on the murder mile

While I still think it's unlikely that anyone in authority "ordered a hit on Pat Tillman", this whole situation is just incredibly disturbing. Good on his family for keeping the pressure for these past these years, demanding real answers under what I can only imagine are extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

As serious as your life

Trust Kyle Gann to perceive a link between two seemingly unrelated groups of self-described "Very Serious People" -- insufferable Beltway wankers like Time's Joe Klein (AKA "Joke Line" -- oh, I'm sorry, was that insufficiently serious?) and insufferable serialist fundamentalists:

The thing I love about it is, of course, that "serious" has also long been the word that High Modernist composers use to distinguish themselves from composers who try to appeal to the audience, who think about accessibility, who are influenced by pop music, who don't build up dramatic climaxes, who appreciate Erik Satie and Virgil Thomson, who don't try to impress each other with the sophistication of their techniques. "Serious" is a condescending but tolerant-seeming word that connotes, well, yes, these postminimalists are composers too, and amateurs may find in them a certain entertainment value, but we must not forget, of course, who the really serious composers are.

Read the whole thing.

We're separated at birth, that’s demonstrated in the verse

Kyle Gann, 2007:

Someday someone will appear who has analyzed more minimalist-influenced music from the 1980s and '90s than I have, and if that person feels that I have divided my era into categories inappropriately, I will be glad to listen to her argument. So far, I've gotten plenty of argument, but only from people who don't come anywhere close to fitting that description.

[...]

Now, don't write in and tell me you don't like these pieces. Who cares if you like these pieces? Do I care if you like these pieces? Do I, Kyle Gann, personally give a shit whether you like these pieces? No. No, my friend. I do not give a shit whether you like these pieces.

-----

Milton Babbitt, 1958:

It often has been remarked that only in politics and the "arts" does the layman regard himself as an expert, with the right to have his opinion heard. In the realm of politics he knows that this right, in the form of a vote, is guaranteed by fiat. Comparably, in the realm of public music, the concertgoer is secure in the knowledge that the amenities of concert going protect his firmly stated "I didn't like it" from further scrutiny. Imagine, if you can, a layman chancing upon a lecture on "Pointwise Periodic Homeomorphisms." At the conclusion, he announces: "I didn't like it," Social conventions being what they are in such circles, someone might dare inquire: "Why not?" Under duress, our layman discloses precise reasons for his failure to enjoy himself; he found the hall chilly, the lecturer's voice unpleasant, and he was suffering the digestive aftermath of a poor dinner. His interlocutor understandably disqualifies these reasons as irrelevant to the content and value of the lecture, and the development of mathematics is left undisturbed. If the concertgoer is at all versed in the ways of musical lifesmanship, he also will offer reasons for his "I didn't like it" - in the form of assertions that the work in question is "inexpressive," "undramatic," "lacking in poetry," etc., etc., tapping that store of vacuous equivalents hallowed by time for: "I don't like it, and I cannot or will not state why." The concertgoer's critical authority is established beyond the possibility of further inquiry.

-----

Okay, I keed, I keed. Babbittian crankiness aside, Kyle's Postminimalism: Chapter One, Metaphorically Speaking is a first-rate piece of analysis, tracing some specific commonalities between composers whose music sounds very different indeed and making some incisive observations about postminimalism as a kind of do-over of serialism, but without all the Germanic angst. He also hosts audio of one of the pieces under discussion -- Belinda Reynolds's "Cover." While it breaks my heart to know that Kyle Gann does not, personally, give a shit whether I like this piece, I like this piece. A lot. It's pretty kickass, actually.

Anyway, never mind the occasional cantankerous outburst, just go read. It's worth it, I promise. Or if you just want to hear the MP3 of "Cover," scroll down to just before the string of asterisks. This is, BTW, the title track from Belinda's most recent CD, which you can get here.

(As an aside, am I the only one having nightmares about this picture of Unca Milt?)

Facts just twist the truth around

Everyone and their dog has already linked to Conservapedia -- the wiki for the hydrocephalic and home-schooled -- but seriously, this is without question the best trainwreck I've ever seen on the internet. As one commenter pointed out, it's not just that they're crazy, they're crazy about crazy things -- like the use of "BCE" and "CE" instead of "B.C." and "A.D.", and how using the British spelling for certain words is evidence of anti-American bias. I'm not making this up.

Hilarious commentary abounds -- see Jon Swift, for starters. But why don't we take a quick survey of all of their music-related entries to date?

Beethoven: "Ludwig Van Beethoven was a German musician who lived from 1770-1827. He was a great pianist and composer, and his work is among the most famous music ever written. The most remarkable thing about Beethoven is that he completely lost his hearing, yet continued to compose music despite the fact that he could not even hear himself play. In fact, some of his greatest works were composed after he had fallen deaf, including the famous Ninth Symphony. He lived during the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic ages in music. Some of his most famous songs include Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata."

Stravinsky: "Igor Stravinsky was famous Russian composer. In his piece, The Rite of Spring, which he wrote in 1913, he broke away from traditional views of music by having the instruments play in different keys simultaneously."

Recorder: "A recorder is a musical instrument about a foot long. You play it by blowing through a whistle-like mouthpiece known as a fipple, and putting your fingers on holes to prevent air from coming out. Baroque and Renaissance music written 'for flute' would have been played on a recorder. The modern 'flute'—made of silver, held sideways, and played by blowing across it— was not developed until the 1800s."

Musical Harmony: "Musical harmony was invented in the late 800s A.D. Singers in monasteries like St. Gall in Switzerland improved the basic chant by adding a voice in parallel motion in order to sign in mostly perfect fourths or fifths along with the original tune. This was the beginning of musical harmony, and is known as the organum. It later became the counterpoint."

Jazz: "Jazz is an entirely American style of music that originated in New Orleans during the 1920s. It combines traditional European music with African American music."

The Beatles: "The Beatles were one of the most influential rock bands of the 20th century. They were the most successful band, selling over 1 billion records. The four Beatles were John Lennon (1940-1980), George Harrison (1943-2001), Paul McCartney (1942- ), and Ringo Starr (1940- ). Many of the Beatles songs were written by Lennon and McCartney, Lennon writing the lyrics and McCartney writing the music."

The Vans Warped Tour: "A punk, hardcore,ska, and emo music festival series sponsored by Vans Shoes that has occured every summer since 1994. Lasting all day and having over 50 stops in the US. It is best known for having large numbers of bands or artists playing throughout the day, sometimes over 100! There is also usually a skateboarding demo as well. Bands such as: The casualties, Senses Fail, Nofx, Less than jake, Atreyu, thursday, and even Joan Jett and the blackhearts have appeared at past warped tour dates."

Examples of bias in Wikipedia: "Wikipedia claims about 1.5 million articles, but what it does not say is that a large number of those articles have zero educational value. For example, Wikipedia has 1075 separate articles about "Moby" and "song". Many hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles -- perhaps over half its website -- are about music, Hollywood, and other topics beneath a regular encyclopedia."

Behearer.com, eat your heart out.