Up War
Peter Gabriel
I'm reminded of one of my stranger housemates over the years--SC--who was a Peter Gabriel fanatic. Listened to LPs of the old Genesis albums over and over. Meanwhile, he would rock back and forth old this old dilapidated rocking chair (he'd really made it his--it carried around the identation of his body). Every once in a while, while rocking on that chair to Peter Gabriel--SC would flip the whole rocking chair upside down and I'd have to set it aright. The guy was a freak's freak. Having suffered a collotomy in a car crash (or so he told us), he was afflicted with epilepsy and had several fits a week. Also he could contort his body to fit in a very small suitcase.
Anyway, the album (Up) is very good. In Salon I read that one of the collaborators thought enough music had been recorded for 10 albums, but that Gabriel had pared it down!
My favorite track so far is 2. The songs are pretty long by pop standards, more than about 7 minutes, with lots going on, even some simple counterpoint. It's a little jarring to hear Gabriel's voice alone or over simple piano, because it's such a distinctive sound and to me it's a sound that says "Eighties!"
War
Americans care about people getting killed--American soldiers or Iraqi civilians--but it's clear to me any war with Iraq is about nothing but a bunch of weak leaders hung up on proving their strength. It's like Vietnam without the Domino Theory: useless little country becomes pivot for superpower's self-image, only this time there's nothing at stake, no Cold War.
Paradoxically, I think gaining access to more oil is against the US's best interest, as it would (1) increase pollution (and associated medical costs), (2) delay phasing out of the oil-car culture.
Weapons of Mass Destruction is a joke--the current stage of the inspection proccess seems to be par for the decades-course. I have no sympathy for Hussein, a murderous megalomaniac, but he doesn't seem to be trying to kill me, now.
Not that I heard the speech Bush gave when he substituted for the President's State of the Union, but it seems to me almost the opposite of a widely regarded speech Clinton had given earlier. Clinton had stressed, post 9/11, the "interdependence" of countries in the modern world. Bush in his speech emphasized that the rest of the world had no affect on the course of the US. I can picture him and his advisors hearing Clinton's speech and saying, "How about that fancy talk--interdependence? No way's the US have to do what the rest of the world says."
Can it be any more obvious that George W. Bush is out of touch?
I'm reminded of one of my stranger housemates over the years--SC--who was a Peter Gabriel fanatic. Listened to LPs of the old Genesis albums over and over. Meanwhile, he would rock back and forth old this old dilapidated rocking chair (he'd really made it his--it carried around the identation of his body). Every once in a while, while rocking on that chair to Peter Gabriel--SC would flip the whole rocking chair upside down and I'd have to set it aright. The guy was a freak's freak. Having suffered a collotomy in a car crash (or so he told us), he was afflicted with epilepsy and had several fits a week. Also he could contort his body to fit in a very small suitcase.
Anyway, the album (Up) is very good. In Salon I read that one of the collaborators thought enough music had been recorded for 10 albums, but that Gabriel had pared it down!
My favorite track so far is 2. The songs are pretty long by pop standards, more than about 7 minutes, with lots going on, even some simple counterpoint. It's a little jarring to hear Gabriel's voice alone or over simple piano, because it's such a distinctive sound and to me it's a sound that says "Eighties!"
War
Americans care about people getting killed--American soldiers or Iraqi civilians--but it's clear to me any war with Iraq is about nothing but a bunch of weak leaders hung up on proving their strength. It's like Vietnam without the Domino Theory: useless little country becomes pivot for superpower's self-image, only this time there's nothing at stake, no Cold War.
Paradoxically, I think gaining access to more oil is against the US's best interest, as it would (1) increase pollution (and associated medical costs), (2) delay phasing out of the oil-car culture.
Weapons of Mass Destruction is a joke--the current stage of the inspection proccess seems to be par for the decades-course. I have no sympathy for Hussein, a murderous megalomaniac, but he doesn't seem to be trying to kill me, now.
Not that I heard the speech Bush gave when he substituted for the President's State of the Union, but it seems to me almost the opposite of a widely regarded speech Clinton had given earlier. Clinton had stressed, post 9/11, the "interdependence" of countries in the modern world. Bush in his speech emphasized that the rest of the world had no affect on the course of the US. I can picture him and his advisors hearing Clinton's speech and saying, "How about that fancy talk--interdependence? No way's the US have to do what the rest of the world says."
Can it be any more obvious that George W. Bush is out of touch?