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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Jim Connelly's
Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Monday, January 15, 2007
Jesse Steichen's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Friday, January 12, 2007
Bill Bentley's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Anthony Carew's 13 Fave Albums Of 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
SXSW 2006: Finding Some Hope In Austin
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Letter From New Orleans
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums of 2005
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Music For Dwindling Days: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Sean Fennessey's 'Best-Of' 2005
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Albums Of 2005
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings of 2005
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Michael Lach - Old Soul Songs For A New World Order
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Found In Translation — Emme Stone's Year In Music 2005
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Dave Allen's 'Best-Of' 2005
Monday, January 2, 2006
Steve Gozdecki's Favorite Albums Of 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Johnny Walker Black's Top 10 Of 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Neal Block's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Year In Review
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Jennifer Kelly's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Ben Gook's Beloved Albums Of 2005
Monday, December 5, 2005
Anthony Carew's Fave Albums Of 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Prince, Spoon And The Magic Of The Dead Stop
Monday, September 12, 2005
The Truth About America
Monday, September 5, 2005
Tryin' To Wash Us Away
Monday, August 1, 2005
A Psyche-Folk Heat Wave In Western Massachusetts
Monday, July 18, 2005
Soggy But Happy At Glastonbury 2005
Monday, April 4, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 3: All Together Now
Friday, April 1, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 2: Dr. Dog's Happy Chords
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 1: Waiting, Waiting And More Waiting
Friday, March 25, 2005
Final Day At SXSW's Charnel House
Monday, March 21, 2005
Day Three At SXSW
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Day Two In SXSW's Hall Of Mirrors
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Report #1: SXSW 2005 And Its Hall Of Mirrors
Monday, February 14, 2005
Matt Landry's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
David Howie's 'Moments' From The Year 2004
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Noah Bonaparte's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Kevin John's Fave Albums Of 2004
Friday, January 14, 2005
Music For Those Nights: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Neal Block's Top Ten Of 2004
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 10, 2005
Wayne Robins' Top Ten Of 2004
Friday, January 7, 2005
Brian Orloff's Fave Albums Of 2004
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Johnny Walker (Black)'s Top 10 Of 2004
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums (And Book) Of 2004
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Mark Mordue's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 3, 2005
Lee Templeton's Fave Recordings Of 2004
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Monday, September 12, 2005
The Truth About America
Leslie Goldberg writes: It is two weeks after Hurricane Katrina — our
second September 11. On September 11, 2001, the world changed drastically: A
veil was pulled
away from our eyes, and we saw this terrible schism between ourselves and the
entire Arab world, between our religion and their religion. A xenophobic boil
of anger and fear that was already growing in America exploded when those airplanes
flew into those buildings — our buildings, our people.
Since then, a murderous, vengeful American rage has been loosed on the world.
A recent news
report indicates that American "contractors" in Iraq are randomly shooting
at innocent Iraqis, and there's no accountability. Suspected terrorists are locked
up — without trials or representation or even being charged — in our
installations in Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq and the United States. America, once
the well-scrubbed, good-intentioned, gap-toothed farmboy, now looks like Scarface
in leather gloves about to administer torture.
And now, in the wake of Katrina, another veil is pulled on another terrible schism
in America: Rich white against poor black.
An Unimaginable Reality
The scene was almost unthinkable: Thousands of poor, black Americans, two-thirds
women and children, imprisoned in an indoor stadium with no food, no water, no
toilets, no order of law, unbearable heat in utter darkness, while the federal
government dithered. The same thing was going on in the New Orleans convention
center,
and the national government didn't even know those people were there.
A rich, white president who exercises an hour a day so that he can be "crisp," and
who vacations five weeks a year even in time of war, looks out his plane window
to see what is probably the country's worst natural disaster and the country's
worst humanitarian disaster. But he's so far up he can't see or hear the screams
of the poor, the sick, the mentally incapacitated, the elderly and the children
who are dying below. And it's painfully obvious to everyone that the president
doesn't care to hear or see the anguish. And it's painfully obvious to everyone
that most of the people suffering below are black.
America let them down — to use a favorite phrase of the vice president — big-time.
The Price of Tax Cuts
And now there has been a frenzy of donations to the Red Cross. Please excuse
my jaundiced view, but I wonder how many people prefer to have a nice, warm,
satisfied feeling that comes from writing a $100 check, instead of feeling guilt
over having
refused to support taxation.
Over and over Bush has promised lower taxes, and throughout his political career
he has delivered that in spades — certainly for the rich.
Thanks to cost-cutting, money for FEMA wasn't there. The agency, as aptly demonstrated on national TV, is a shell. Who cared if you appointed an idiot with virtually no relevant experience to run the thing? There was very little to run.
So America, you don't want to pay taxes? Here's what it looks like.
Barbara Bush had it right: "These people were underprivileged before." It was
obvious that most of the victims on television, many of them missing teeth, hadn't
had the benefit of dental care or adequate medical care. Many looked terribly
overweight, a sign of poor, not good, nutrition. (Guess they
didn't
exercise.)
Others, by the way they spoke, demonstrated a pitiful lack of education — living examples of a New Orleans public education system that's little better than a charade, with only about half the kids managing to graduate from high school within four years.
Guess the poor folks of New Orleans missed the bull market of the '90s.
They've been let down for a long time, and this time America was refusing to even toss out a few MREs or a pallet of water from a helicopter or open up its military hospital ship, the USS Bataan, which happened to be in the Gulf when Katrina hit. The governor kept begging for evacuation buses.
It was ghastly.
The Blame Game
And now the Bush administration and its minions have taken to the airwaves to blame the local authorities. Let the swift-boating begin. Don't show the bodies on TV. The death toll isn't as high as expected.
The PR strategy seems to be working.
Yet one can't deny the bells are tolling for the New Deal and the Great Society. The bells are tolling for our hopes for an equal society, a compassionate society. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" sounds so quaint, so naïve to our modern ears.
Laura Bush was insulted and upset to hear that people were saying it was racism that slowed down the relief efforts.
The lady protests too much. I say to Mrs. Bush, "Get real."
A Republican friend who lives in Louisiana said, "The people who didn't evacuate when they should have are just the dregs of society, the worst people, the people nobody wants. Most of them are convicted felons and the ones who aren't convicted felons just haven't been caught."
So the dregs are in the Astrodome waiting for their $2,000 debit card.
Cindy Sheehan continues to tour the country, still waiting for the president to explain the noble cause for which her son died.
Perhaps if the president would explain, military recruiters wouldn't have to troll among the country’s most vulnerable. If people did truly believe the cause was noble, wouldn't they be lining up?
Right now, I think the "noble cause" that is America is being rewritten. I am not hopeful.
After September 11 there was talk about "reaching out" to the Arab-Muslim world. I would think that any African-Americans who started hearing about this administration and/or the Republican party extending a hand to them would want to head for the hills!
Currently, I'm reading The Diary of Anne Frank for inspiration.
Leslie Goldberg is a former reporter for the San Francisco Examiner.
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