Wienermobile

Wienermobile

Wienermobile at Towne Center, Fayetteville, N.Y. March 2007

Punks, Indies, Rappers, Girl Groups & Drama Queens

Salon.com sports columnist King Kaufman said this about Cooperstown, but it definitely fits the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as well: “The most boring room in the building is the one with all the plaques.” It’s not who’s in the hall, it’s the music. To that end, my last post on this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Well, the Van Halen induction backfired didn’t it? The recently fired bass player and the JV lead vocalist were the only ones to show. However, check out the photo of Eddie Van Halen at an Oscar awards party earlier this month and tell me that rehab wasn’t desperately needed.

I’ve been listening obsessively to Patti Smith CD’s for the past few months. She wrote an interesting meditation on her induction as an op-ed piece in the NY Times: “Ain’t It Strange.” Should a punk rocker accept induction into the Rock Hall of Fame, the ultimate mainstream accolade? After all, the Sex Pistols sent a hilarious letter telling the Rock Hall to go fuck themselves.

Patti decides to accept induction graciously, in order to honor the memories of her late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith (guitarist for the MC 5) and her mom. I think it was a great punk moment when Patti and her band ripped into what she termed her mom’s favorite song, the one she used to vacuum to: “Rock & Roll N****r”. “Outside of society/is where I want to be.” Onstage at the Waldorf-Astoria, inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame. Punk acknowledges the ambiguity of real life.

Jay-Z inducts Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, reading his speech off his Blackberry! The times they are a changin’. He was right about one thing, the shot heard round the world was fired from the South Bronx. The NY Times summed it up perfectly: “It’s official, hip-hop is rock & roll.”

The highlight of the evening, R.E.M. and Patti Smith doing a version of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”–the band that should have been inducted rather than the Van Drama Queens.

Living In The City Of Syracuse

Please read today’s column by Sean Kirst in the Post-Standard, a meditation on the profound impact teachers can have on students, an impact likely to be multiplied if the teacher and student live in the same town.

I only have one thing to say about Sean’s column, and it has nothing to do with city residency requirements or any other policy question. I just want to thank Sean for the following:

“Still, living in any Syracuse neighborhood is a quiet statement of belief, and there is an implicit commitment that grows on many of those who settle there. You quickly become aware of how living in the city can be rewarding and safe, and how the passionate involvement of each family helps to keep it that way.”

Sean Kirst
“A view on the matter of teachers, community”
Syracuse Post Standard March 9, 2007

NYT Touts NYC Dinosaur BBQ

After slagging the Dino’s opening in Harlem, the NYT is re-thinking its opinion on the Big Apple Dinosaur BBQ. The nation’s paper of record names Dino/NYC one of several restaurants to go to for good ribs in NYC, singling out its pork ribs for praise, as well as its wait staff. It blows off all the sides and other menu options–but it’s definitely an improvement from their terrible reviews upon opening their new outpost of Syracuse culture.

GOP Thinks Community Organizing Is Totalitarian

On a recent Hannity and Colmes talk show, Republican pollster Frank Luntz likened Saul Alinsky, the man who created the precepts of community organizing, to “people from Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s.”

The reason for the slur was an attempt to attack Hillary Clinton by proxy, because her senior thesis at Wellesley College was a largely positive review of Alinsky’s work and philosophy.

The ostensible liberal on the show (Mr. Colmes) attempted to defend Hillary, but he did so by pointing out that in her thesis she disagreed with Alinsky on many points and that she questioned the wisdom of confrontation as a key to community organizing strategy.

So, to re-cap: Republicans think we’re fascists and wimpy liberals think we’re misguided hotheads.

I’d love to read Hillary’s whole thesis. She was true to her beliefs, she advocated for those less fortunate, rather than work as an organizer, giving the training and support that enables people to advocate for themselves.

Just wait until the the GOP spin team puts two and two together and realize that
Barack Obama actually worked as an Alinsky-style organizer, he didn’t just write about it in college.

The Must Do List

The following is a brief summary of the New York Times “Must Do List” “Must Do List,” a list of actions that it urges the new Congress to take to roll back “the Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy.”

Every candidate for Congress and President should be quizzed on these points and anything less than 100% support should cause a voter to look elsewhere for a candidate.

1) Restore habeas corpus. The right to challenge imprisonment in court, even for those the administration labels an illegal enemy combatant.

2) Stop illegal spying. Mr. Bush’s program of intercepting Americans’ international calls and e-mail messages without a warrant

3) Ban torture, really. The provisions in the Military Commissions Act still allows the president to decide what constitutes torture and abuse.

4) Close the C.I.A. prisons. The series of “shadowy” prisons run by the C.I.A. at secret places across the globe.

5) Account for the “Ghost Prisoners”. Human Rights Watch says it has identified nearly 40 men and women who have disappeared into secret American-run prisons.

6) Ban extraordinary rendition. The odious practice of abducting foreign citizens and secretly flying them to countries where everyone knows they will be tortured.

7) Tighten the definition of combatant. Virtually any foreigner anywhere, including those living legally in the United States, can be labeled an “illegal enemy combatant.”

Screen prisoners fairly and effectively. Hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo, the vast majority will never even be brought before tribunals and still face indefinite detention without charges.

9) Ban use of evidence tainted by torture. The Military Commissions Act is far too permissive on evidence obtained through physical abuse or coercion.

10) Ban secret evidence. Under the Pentagon’s new rules for military tribunals, judges are allowed to keep evidence secret from a prisoner’s lawyer if the government persuades the judge it is classified.

11) Tighten definition of “classified evidence.” Rules for excluding evidence that may effect national security are too broad.

12) Respect prisoners’ right to counsel. The Bush administration has been unceasingly hostile to any lawyers who defend detainees, going so far as listening to conversations and intercepting mail between prisoners and their lawyers.

13) Halt the administration’s race to classify documents to avoid public scrutiny. 15.6 million in 2005, nearly double the 2001 number.

14) Reverse the harm done to the Freedom of Information Act. The current administration has encouraged agencies to reject requests for documents whenever possible.

15) Stop F.B.I. spying on nonviolent antiwar groups. Congress should revisit the section of the Patriot act that allows this spying.

16) The United States should apologize to a Canadian citizen and a German citizen, both innocent, who were kidnapped and tortured by American agents.

17) Close the Guantánamo camp. It is a despicable symbol of the abuses committed by this administration (with Congress’s complicity) in the name of fighting terrorism.

Constitution, What Constitution?

Governor Elliot Spitzer has taken a page out of the Bush Administration’s handbook “How To Treat The Constitution Like It’s Yesterday’s Garbage.” The Spitzer administration has made an agreement with both the Assembly and the Senate to pass legislation dealing with the civil confinement of sex offenders. Under the new legislation sex offenders would be subject to confinement, even after they have finished serving the sentence for which they were sent to prison, for an additional period. The maximum new confinement would be 25 years.

Minors and non-violent offenders are subject to this law, as are people subject to New York’s newest crime: the “sexually motivated felony” that would apply to those who intended to commit a sex crime but did not.

In New York, you can now serve out an entire sentence in prison with no parole, then be shipped to a “civil confinement” institution for another 25 years–just because someone THOUGHT you wanted to commit a sex crime.

I have one suggestion, the new civil confinement facility shouldn’t be built at either the current Marcy or Camp Pharsalia facilities run by the Department of Corrections. They should sentence sex offenders to Guantanamo.

They Saw Me Coming From A Mile Away

New cap for spring training

Major League Baseball has changed the technology that goes into making a
baseball cap.
They’ve switched from wool to a polyester material, adding little gussets on the sides and something called “vapor management technology” so they won’t stink when you sweat in them.

All I know is that they are marketing both a spring training model and a regular season model. As you can see from above, guess who ran out and plunked down his $30 for the spring training model? In my defense, it is a cool shade of red, different from the traditional red sox navy blue.

My wife says I have more baseball caps than she has shoes–I don’t think that’s true, but it’s awfully close. I just hope she doesn’t go ballistic when I go out in April to buy the regular season model.