Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 267

Questions About 'NYT' Photo Essay

I've missed this until now but ace blogger and photo expert Michael Shaw has done a lengthy re-cap and analysis of recent problem at the Times, when it suddenly pulled a photo essay--about an alleged slavery/girl servant in Haiti--and ran an editors' note.  Love the title: "A Story Gone Haywire--Then Simply Gone."  It's a little complicated to detail so just go check it out.  Shaw raises all sorts of interesting larger questions about photo essays, lack of fact-checking regarding them, and asks whether the NYT has gone far enough in "correcting."

Dead Friend of Boston Bomber Unarmed When Killed

So now it turns out--as we suspected all along--that the friend of Tamerlan the Boston Bomber was unarmed when shot and killed by an FBI agent recently in that infamous incident.  You'll recall that he was in the act of confessing to that triple-murder drug hit (with Tamerlan's help) in Waltham when he suddenly leaped up and, supposedly, attack one of the interrogators and simply had to be shot and killed.  Now it looks like he had not weapon and simply turned over a table and lunged.  Three armed agents apparently couldn't handle it.  I supposed this will only fan the conspiracy nut theories. 

Roll Over, Beethoven: New Edition of Book--And Movie Premiere Next Week!

Just out today in print and e-book editions (for Kindle, iPad etc.  and the Nook):  An expanded new edition of  Journeys With Beethoven: Following the Ninth, and Beyond , which I wrote with film director Kerry Candaele, published by Sinclair Books.   It's just $3.99 for the e-book and $11.99 for print.  It includes an exciting new chapter on the role Beethoven played when the Berlin Wall fell (with Leonard Bernstein in a key role).   

Kerry has a great documentary Following the Ninth, which I helped a little on--and earned some kind of producing credit--premiering in a cool theater in Santa Barbara on June 4  (see trailer below).   Both the book and the film  follow the Ninth Symphony and it's enormous cultural and political influence around the world today.  So they take us from Chile to China and Japan and Germany, plus a stop in London for a full chapter with Billy Bragg, and then back in the USA.

In the "Beyond" section of the book I explore my own obsessive "travels" with Ludwig, as a longtime rock 'n roller, in recent years, via concerts and movies and CDs -- but also through new "Beethoven delivery systems" (YouTube, web forums, Twitter, etc.)  I also interview at length pianist Jeremy Denk. 

Those who know me from my infamous Crawdaddy and Springsteen days might be a bit...surprised?  Maybe it's now, "Roll Over, Chuck Berry."  In any case, it's a totally unique book on Beethoven--a Beethoven for our time, at last.  Again, e-book here and print here.  And here's Kerry's trailer:

"Terroristic" Threat in My Backyard

Just reported that a 51-year-old veteran security guard at my local high school, two miles down the road in Nyack, N.Y., has been arrested for making a "terroristic" threat--namely, vowing to go home and blow up the place.  That is, "I'm going to go home and get my guns and blow this place up." Details coming later but school cautioning parents that no one ever in danger.   They are downplaying it and bail set at only $1000--and he's home already--sounds a bit odd.   More here.

Back Up the Van

For fans only:   alternate take of his "Glad Tidings" off Moondance, much slower and stripped down. 

Jemima Surrenders To Activism

The NYT has just posted a major feature in its "T" magazine coming this Sunday, on what it calls the "unlikely" activism of Jemima Khan.   Of course, she is the former socialite and ex-wife of famed cricket star--and now rising politician in Pakistan--Imran Khan.   I've written about her for quite awhile, since she first embraced the WikiLeaks cause in London and even posted bail for Julian Assange.   She's also written for some leading publications.  Then I wrote about her again recently, as she grew critical of Assange and worked as a producer for the Alex Gibney We Steal Secrets doc--for which she was blasted by Assange associates. 

Did Obama Already Break New Drone 'Promises'?

Latest strike kills four in Pakistan, possibly a top Taliban leader, just days after announcing new "rules."  Did this strike break them already?  Critics had already warned there was little change behind the rhetoric.   Spencer Ackerman explores here.  "The Obama administration has yet to officially acknowledge the strike, let alone detail what if any 'continuing, imminent threat' Rehman posed. (If it does, that really will be a departure from past practice.) However, Obama’s team defines those terms so broadly that a whole lot fits under their banner."

Giving a Name to Our 'Forever War' Vital?

Andrew Bacevich, the former military man and historian and one of the most cogent writers on America's wars since 9/11 (in which he lost a son) is back with a lengthy, rewarding, piece about the need to put a name to the War Formerly Known as the War on Terror, after more than a decade.  He goes through the names given to our previous wars--World War II should have had two separate titles, for example--and then examines some broadly-defined choices for the current conflicts that encompass the entire Middle East to Afghanistan.  Excerpt:

The War for the Greater Middle East: I confess that this is the name I would choose for Washington’s unnamed war and is, in fact, the title of a course I teach.  (A tempting alternative is the Second Hundred Years War, the “first” having begun in 1337 and ended in 1453.)

This war is about to hit the century mark, its opening chapter coinciding with the onset of World War I.  Not long after the fighting on the Western Front in Europe had settled into a stalemate, the British government, looking for ways to gain the upper hand, set out to dismantle the Ottoman Empire whose rulers had foolishly thrown in their lot with the German Reich against the Allies.

Comet Falls to Earth

Marshall Lytle, bassist for Bill Haley's original Comets going back to the early 1950s, has died at the age of 79.  Besides Bill, he was probably the visual focus for the group, slapping his stand-up bass.  Here, in 1960, six years after they changed the word, they do "Rock Around the Clock" live--the song that really launched rock' n roll, before Elvis.

Sheldon Adelson in Israel

The far-right GOP and Israel funder Sheldon Adelson gets honored in Jerusalem and the details and quotes, here in NYT  tonight, will probably appall you.   Complete with crooners flown in from his $2.4 billion casino. 

As for the Palestinians, Mr. Adelson said, “They teach their children that Jews are descended from swine and apes, pigs and monkeys.” Then he questioned their existence as a distinct ethnic group, saying they were “southern Syrians” or Egyptians until Yasir Arafat, who was leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, “came along with a pitcher of Kool-Aid and gave it to everybody to drink and sold them the idea of Palestinians.”

These ideas, staples of the far right, are deeply offensive to the Palestinians — perhaps partly the point.