Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 211

The Charity of Night

That's the title of one of most underrated albums ever, from Bruce Cockburn in 1996, with several songs that detail his world travels and political concerns, from war zones to buried landmires in Mozambique, plus a tender love song or two and poetry/songs, with phenomenal backup from bassist Rob Wasserman and famed vibes master Gary Burton.  (You may recall that he wrote other war zone tunes such as  "If I Had a Rocket Launcher.") Here's the closing tune, with the immortal line, "Everything is bullshit / but the open hand."  Full album here, kicking off with the great Night Train.

Stepin Out With Ali

NYT reviews today new play in NY on the odd, interesting, 1960s friendship between black pride Cassius Clay (just becoming Ali) and Hollywood's symbol on shiftless Negro stereotyping Stepin Fetchit.   Here's brief trailer:

Syria (Actual) Death Toll in Chem Attack Draws Belated Attention

I've been among the few to question the 1,429 death toll figure virtually from the day Kerry, and then Obama, made the claim--just one of my pieces here--and have complaned that most in the media have gone along with it since.  Now, two weeks later, there is this Reuters report.  Chris Hayes tweets "oy," as if this was a revelation for him.  Reuters suggests that private admissions about the lower number led to some lack of support for Congress for the U.S. strike, in case you were wondering.  As I wrote, the lies about that number would cause some of question other claims. 

What a Shindig!

Too much fun:  Roy Orbison closes a vintage Shindig show, with Darlene Love in backing group, and joined by Everly Brothers and teen dancers, on "What'd I Say."  Plus a milk commercial.

Beethoven: Unearthly Beauty

You may have read that Voyager space probe is finally leaving the solar system--the first man-made object to do so.  You may also have read at some point that it holds the so-called "Golden Record," discs created to serve as greetings to any foreign intelligence, if they can de-code it.  Featured are spoken word messages, animal sounds, and music, from Bach to Chuck Berry.  I've always known, and even written in my Beethoven book, that it features Ludwig's 5th symphony but did not know until today, thanks to Alex Ross, that it closes, aptly, with one of the most beautiful, moving and profound pieces ever written, Beethoven's "Cavatina." 

Springsteen's 'Manifesto'--for Victor Jara

His tribute last night in Santiago to the famed Chilean political folk singer, who died 40 years ago in the U.S.-backed coup.   Sung in Spanish after his intro, also in Spanish.  It's the last song Jara wrote before he was tortured and killed.   See my recent Jara post here.   Bruce first read about Jara in our 1974 Crawdaddy opus.  Lyrics: 

I don’t sing for love of singing
or to show off my voice
but for the statements
made by my honest guitar
for its heart is of the earth
and like the dove it goes flying.... 
Yes, my guitar is a worker
shining and smelling of spring
my guitar is not for killers
greedy for money and power
but for the people who labor
so that the future may flower.
For a song takes on a meaning
when its own heart beat is strong
sung by a man who will die singing
truthfully singing his song.
I don’t care for adulation
or so that strangers may weep.
I sing for a far strip of country
narrow but endlessly deep

Chipotle vs. Factory Farming (Plus an Apple)

Amazing three-minute vid or commercial, if you will, for Chipotle, animated and with Fiona Apple's "Pure Imagination," depicts the horrors of factory farming and the company's claim to use better alternatives.

Monty Python: New Action Heroes!

Somehow we had to wait decades for this:  The silly, subversive, often hysterical Monty Python and the Holy Grail re-cut as a modern day, serious action movie!  Well, at least the trailer suggests it is.  Next we hope: The Life of Brian as an all-time epic on Jesus vs. Rome.

'NYT' Reporter: Avoiding War Not in Our Interest?

There's one kind of dangerous front-page reporting in the run-up to any possible war: the factually inaccurate, skewed (or possibly not) to the reporter's likely prejudice in favor of, or opposed to, a planned assault, or simply based on poor sourcing and editing.   Let's mention Judith Miller, for example.  But there's another kind, that probably is just as misleading and dangerous and serves the interests of war hawks.  Call it the POV problem, or the national security insider failure, or whatever.

Consider this in the lead front-page piece at The New York Times by Steven Lee Myers (left) on Putin and the Russian proposal--not accepted by Assad today--to put all of Syria's chemical stockpiles under international control.  This would seem like a positive development, especially since President Obama said there was no particular gain in bombing this week vs. two weeks or a month from now.  And Obama and nearly all of our political leadership leaped at the offer.   But consider this near the top of the Myers piece:

Although circumstances could shift yet again, Mr. Putin appears to have achieved several objectives, largely at Washington's expense.

Now ponder that a moment.  Myers is actually declaring that delaying a serious missile attack--which has little international or domestic support, and  nearly everyone agrees would be financially costly, produce images of dead civilians around the world, inflame more hatred of America, possibly provoke a deadly Assad response in various areas, AND not settle a terribly bloody civil war--is "largely at Washington's expense."  He should be moved off this beat just as surely as a Judy Miller might be.

A Rose By Any Other Meme: Wrong

I missed the widely-linked and repeated Rose reports of "Global Cooling"--and its trending on Twitter, for gosh sake--but now he's being debunked by actual experts.   Wish he was right, of course. CJR:

At Discover, Tom Yulsman uses a series of animated GIFs to illustrate the Rose’s data problems in a post titled, “With Climate Journalism Like This, Who Needs Fiction.”

The writers each issue a devastating and thorough critique of the piece, but it’s worth nothing how much time is wasted on an author whose reportage Plaitt calls “so ridiculously wrong it’s charitable to call them ‘ridiculously wrong.’”

But as Yulsman points out, the complexity of climate-change science leaves room for this kind of unverified attack: The correct argument is full of nuanced analysis, which is not only harder to write—it’s harder, as a reader, to absorb.