Author: Seth Anderson

Just another Gen-Xer still posting on a blog

João Gilberto’s Pioneering Records In a Legal Limbo

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“The Legendary João Gilberto” (João Gilberto)

This is really a shame, I’ve often wanted to hear these albums, and have hoped eventually the copyright issue would get settled.

A NUMBER of notable concerts of Brazilian music around the world this year, including one by João Gilberto next Sunday at Carnegie Hall as part of the JVC Jazz Festival, are being advertised with the line “50 Years of Bossa Nova.” Mr. Gilberto is considered by many to have defined the musical form, which was embraced internationally and has never really gone away in Brazil. Yet Mr. Gilberto’s first three albums, some of the best music of the 20th century, have largely been unavailable.

For 10 years or so they haven’t been in record stores, nor on Amazon.com (unless you’re willing to pay $100 or more for used copies) nor on iTunes. The only way you may have found them was through illegal file sharing, or, if you were lucky enough, to know someone who had copies. This is a weird turn of events in an age that keeps valuable cultural artifacts at close reach.

After 1997, when Mr. Gilberto sued EMI, his former record label, the company ceased manufacturing the albums. Mr. Gilberto and his manager declined to comment on the specifics of the case, but according to Ana Trajan, a lawyer at EMI Brazil, the music is still caught in a long legal process. There are no plans for its reissue, despite a 50th anniversary being the obvious moment.

Bossa nova, a subtle, rustling music with jazz harmony, chamber-music dynamics, samba rhythm and close-miked emphasis on voice and guitar, began when the Brazilian recording industry, and the Brazilian economy, was at a high. It may have gestated in 1957 in clubs around Rio’s borough of Copacabana, or even a year earlier in the state of Minas Geraes, in the confines Mr. Gilberto’s sister’s tiled bathroom, where Mr. Gilberto played in isolation for eight months, forming his intimate voice-and-guitar sound.

And then came Mr. Gilberto’s album, “Chega de Saudade,” recorded in 1958 and 1959. The songs on that record, and on his next two — “O Amor, o Sorriso e a Flor” and “João Gilberto” — were very nearly the first examples of a new musical style. More important, they permanently defined that style. Bossa nova is the rare example of a music whose lines of history and influence keep tracing, more or less, to one person — something you can’t say for blues or jazz or country or rock ’n’ roll. It’s rarer still that the person is still alive and performing.

[Click to read more of Music – João Gilberto’s Pioneering Bosso Nova Records Are Caught in a Legal Limbo – NYTimes.com]

Glancing at my iTunes library, I only have one João Gilberto album, a extremely listenable collaboration with saxophonist Stan Getz, that you’ve probably heard snippets from in various films:


“Getz/Gilberto” (Stan Getz, Joao Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto)

Originally released in March 1964, this collaboration between saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist João Gilberto came at seemingly the end of the bossa nova craze Getz himself had sparked in 1962 with Jazz Samba, his release with American guitarist Charlie Byrd. Jazz Samba remains the only jazz album to reach number one in the pop charts. In fact, the story goes that Getz had to push for the release of Getz/Gilberto since the company did not want to compete with its own hit; it was a good thing he did.Getz/Gilberto, which featured composer Antonio Carlos Jobim on piano, not only yielded the hit “Girl from Ipanema” (sung by Astrud Gilberto, the guitarist’s wife, who had no professional experience) but also “Corcovado” (“Quiet Night”)–an instant standard, and the definitive version of “Desafinado.” Getz/Gilberto spent 96 weeks in the charts and won four Grammys. It remains one of those rare cases in popular music where commercial success matches artistic merit. Bossa nova’s “cool” aesthetic–with its understated rhythms, rich harmonies, and slightly detached delivery–had been influenced, in part, by cool jazz. Gilberto in particular was a Stan Getz fan. Getz, with his lyricism, the bittersweet longing in his sound, and his restrained but strong swing, was the perfect fit. His lines, at once decisive and evanescent, focus the rest of the group’s performance without overpowering. A classic.


“Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World” (Ruy Castro)

Oh, and I’ll have to look out for this book:

Ruy Castro’s authoritative history of bossa nova was published here in 2000 as “Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World.” Naturally, its Brazilian title was “Chega de Saudade,” and naturally, a portrait of Mr. Gilberto was its centerpiece

When I make my long-awaited sojourn to Brazil, I’ll have to look for this version, remastered or not:

The three original LPs were collected together on a remastered, three-album vinyl version, called “O Mito” (“The Myth”), released by EMI Brazil in 1988 (a CD version was released in Brazil in 1992). In 1990 the collection was released in the English-language market by EMI’s World Pacific imprint, as “The Legendary João Gilberto.”

Mr. Gilberto sued EMI in 1997, contending that the old music had been poorly remastered. A statement by his lawyer at the time declared that the reissues contained sound effects that “did not pertain to the original recordings, banalizing the work of a great artist.”

There were also other issues. Luiz Bannitz, the legal director at EMI Brazil from 1999 to 2004, said that the royalty rate in EMI’s old contract with Mr. Gilberto, drawn up in the 1950s, was very low by current standards — “less than 5 percent,” he said. The court ruled in 2002 that EMI should raise his royalty rate to 18 percent, but Mr. Gilberto began a series of appeals on other decisions related to the case; the lawsuit is still pending a superior tribunal court decision.

For good or ill, it is the remastered, early ’90s CD version of this music that I keep in my head. I have heard an old, pre-remastering Brazilian LP pressing of the album “Chega de Saudade,” and the remastered version has some perhaps unnecessary reverb and a more spacious sound-picture, a result of turning mono originals into stereo — the standard practice during the early years of CD reissues. As a consequence the balance of instruments sounds slightly reshuffled; the percussion, for instance, is louder.

Levon Helm is back

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Dirt Farmer” (Levon Helm)

Levon Helm is cool; his voice is a public resource and a treasure. I wish I could have heard him perform, as I liked his recent album a lot.

What remains of that world-weary drawl is a bit frayed around the edges, but it remains a potent instrument, as evidenced by last year’s “Dirt Farmer” (Vanguard), Helm’s first solo album in 25 years. It contains rural blues and mountain-soul laments that he learned from his parents while growing up on a cotton farm in Helena, Ark., as well as more recent contributions from Buddy and Julie Miller and Steve Earle. It’s done up in low-key rustic colors that evoke Helm and the Band in their “Basement Tapes” glory with Bob Dylan. This is the sound of friends gathered in a room to make music of intense conviction at a relaxed pace, and it feels as comfortable as a well-worn flannel shirt, as heart-breaking as a death-bed kiss, as vibrant as a Saturday-night, moonshine-fueled hootenanny.

The cast of co-conspirators includes Larry Campbell, who has served ably as Dylan’s touring guitarist and now plays the role of Helm’s producer, guitarist and fiddle-player. Campbell’s wife, Teresa Williams, contributes sublime harmony vocals, alongside Helm’s daughter, Amy. But at the center of it all is Helm, who plays drums, mandolin and sings with gusto. He brings a wounded yowl to the Stanley Brothers’ “False Hearted Blues Lover,” a lonesome pathos to Earle’s “The Mountain.” These songs are reminders of a rural way of life that is fast fading, as are singers who actually lived through these experiences.

Helm is 68 and has been paying off his medical debts by playing regularly in his adopted hometown of Woodstock, in upstate New York (Helm doesn’t collect songwriting royalties on Band songs, because Robbie Robertson laid publishing claim to most of the band’s material, so he’s largely dependent on live performances for income). His Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, modeled after the traveling minstrel shows of his youth, have attracted the likes of Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John and Donald Fagen.

[From Turn It Up – A guided tour through the worlds of pop, rock and rap | Chicago Tribune | Blog]

Robbie Robertson screwed his bandmates out of royalties, as far as I can tell, and should be ashamed. The Band were excellent because they were a collaborative effort, not because Robbie Robertson was a genius. Helm wrote a marvelous book on the history of The Band, including the topic of publishing credits, if you haven’t read it, you should.


“This Wheel’s on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band” (Levon Helm, Stephen Davis)

His voice doesn’t quite have the range that it used to soar to, but it still contains a lot of power. I don’t know enough about drumming to recognize if his drumming skills are still stellar, but some say his drumming is still good:

Helm survived a bout with throat cancer that was diagnosed in 1998, and his voice is noticeably more weathered than it once was, but in many respects the additional nooks and crannies suit this material beautifully; his interpretations of traditional rural folk songs like “Poor Old Dirt Farmer,” “Little Birds,” and “False Hearted Lover Blues” sound thoroughly authentic but with a bracing sense of force and commitment in Helm’s vocals, and if Steve Earle‘s “The Mountain” and Buddy & Julie Miller‘s “Wide River to Cross” aren’t venerable classics, they sound like they should be once Levon’s done with them. Though Helm adds a touch of boogie to “Got Me a Woman” and a jumped-up interpretation of the Carter Family‘s “Single Girl, Married Girl,” in this context they add some welcome spice to the stew, and Helm’s drumming remains superb. Dirt Farmer is a hard-edged but compassionate and full-hearted set of roots music from a master of the form, and it’s a welcome, inspiring return to form for Levon Helm after a long stretch of professional and personal setbacks.

RIP Brendan Scanlon aka Solve

Seth Anderson5 Comments

Solve Danger

[click image for full version]

RIP Solve aka Brendan Scanlon. Died entirely too young. My condolences to his family, friends, and many fans. I’ve taken several photos of his work, but didn’t know him personally.

Prominent renegade Chicago street artist, Solve, was one of four homicides registered in Chicago this weekend, raising even more the already large number of violent crimes and shootings in the city this year.

Only twenty-five years old, Solve, A.K.A. Brendan Scanlon, was found with multiple stab wounds to the chest at 3032 W. Palmer Blvd. at 2:40 a.m.

A suspect is in custody for the stabbing incident, but no charges have yet been filed.

The murder Of Brendan Scanlon delivers a overwhelmingly saddening blow to the art and graffiti community of Chicago. Solve was a major influence and participant in the emerging and struggling Chicago street art scene in a city with one of the strongest anti-graffiti laws and tactics in the United States.

[Click to read more .: Chicago Street Artist Killed in Weekend Violence, R.I.P. Solve]

see also discussion here, and brief article at the Sun-Times.

Brendan Scanlon, of the 2800 block of West Palmer Blvd., according to the medical examiner’s office, was found with multiple stab wounds to the chest at 3032 W. Palmer Blvd. about 2:40 a.m., Kubiak said.

As of 6:30 a.m. an adult offender was in custody, but no charges have yet been filed.

Solve

— update: obituary in the Sun-Times

At least one person is in custody for the fatal stabbing of a well-known local graffiti artist in the Logan Square neighborhood early Saturday.

The man was found with multiple stab wounds to the chest at 3032 W. Palmer Blvd. about 2:40 a.m., according to police News Affair Officer Laura Kubiak.

The man, identified as Brendan Scanlon, was leaving a party when he got into a “verbal altercation” and was subsequently stabbed, police said.

Police were “talking to people” Saturday evening and as of 6:30 a.m. an “adult offender” was in custody. No charges have been filed.

Scanlon, of 2846 W. Palmer Blvd., died of a stab wound to the chest, an autopsy determined Saturday. His death was ruled a homicide by the County Medical Examiner’s office.

Scanlon graduated from the Illinois Institute of Art in 2007, and worked as a freelance artist and graphic designer, according to his Web site.

Scanlon is reportedly the man behind SOLVE, a local graffiti and street artist. Many people discussed his death on a Chicago Street Art online discussion forum Saturday.

“The Chicago street art and graffiti community has suffered another devastating blow to our family,” one of the forum members posted Saturday. A memorial featuring Scanlon’s work is reportedly being planned.

Scanlon wanted “to be a respected member of the international design community,” and thought “art is one of the things that makes life worth it,” according to his Myspace profile, where friends posted mournful comments Saturday.

Grand Central Area detectives are investigating.

[From Fight leads to fatal stabbing of local artist :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State]

GapersBlock profiled Solve, and some other Chicago street artists a while ago.


SOLVE
His handle is a verb, not a noun. SOLVE uses his street art to “foster a more positive, productive society.” His work tends to be among the most confrontational in the Chicago street art scene — and that’s precisely his aim. Although he primarily works in larger format paste-ups, SOLVE brings his inventive and colorful style to other aspects of the North Side, especially signal boxes.

SOLVE wants you to know that he is not in a gang. And neither are most street artists.

RIP Solve closeup

Solve RIP Heartbroken tiny RGB

Continue reading “RIP Brendan Scanlon aka Solve”

Bad Cow Disease

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"The Jungle: The Uncensored Original Edition" (Upton Sinclair)

Paul Krugman notes, correctly, the reason for so many food safety issues – the conservatives long-term goal of stripping regulatory agencies of any real power to regulate (coupled with staffing of regulatory agencies with officials with conflicted interests)

How did America find itself back in The Jungle?

It started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long idealized the Gilded Age, regarding everything that followed — not just the New Deal, but even the Progressive Era — as a great diversion from the true path of capitalism.

Thus, when Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”

The late Milton Friedman agreed, calling for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.)

Such hard-core opponents of regulation were once part of the political fringe, but with the rise of modern movement conservatism they moved into the corridors of power. They never had enough votes to abolish the F.D.A. or eliminate meat inspections, but they could and did set about making the agencies charged with ensuring food safety ineffective.

They did this in part by simply denying these agencies enough resources to do the job. For example, the work of the F.D.A. has become vastly more complex over time thanks to the combination of scientific advances and globalization. Yet the agency has a substantially smaller work force now than it did in 1994, the year Republicans took over Congress.

[Click to read more of Op-Ed Columnist – Paul Krugman – Bad Cow Disease – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

Unfortunately, one can’t eat solely from Farmer’s Markets. Remember to thank a Republican next time you hear of a food-safety crisis, or next time you get salmonella.

Sidewalks are Symbols

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dying embers of the sun
[full version on black is here]

Personally, I only feel at home when I’m living in a neighborhood that has sidewalks. Other than when I lived out in the boonies of Ontario, most of my life I’ve been lucky enough to live in urban environments, and I’m happy with that choice. The suburbs are wastelands. Enrique Peñalosa agrees with me:

Deborah Solomon – Q: As a former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, who won wide praise for making the city a model of enlightened planning, you have lately been hired by officials intent on building world-class cities, especially in Asia and the developing world. What is the first thing you tell them?

ENRIQUE PEÑALOSA: In developing-world cities, the majority of people don’t have cars, so I will say, when you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality.

Q: I wouldn’t think that sidewalks are a top priority in developing countries.

The last priority. Because the priority is to make highways and roads. We are designing cities for cars, cars, cars, cars, cars. Not for people. Cars are a very recent invention. The 20th century was a horrible detour in the evolution of the human habitat. We were building much more for cars’ mobility than children’s happiness.

Q: Even in countries where most people can’t afford to own cars?/

The upper-income people in developing countries never walk. They see the city as a threatening space, and they can go for months without walking one block.

Q: Isn’t that true here in the United States as well?

Not in Manhattan, but there are many suburbs where there are no sidewalks, which is a very bad sign of a lack of respect for human dignity. People don’t even question it. It’s the same as it was in pre-revolutionary France. People thought society was normal, just as today people think it is normal that the Long Island Sound waterfront should be private.

[From Questions for Enrique Peñalosa – Man With a Plan – Questions for Enrique Peñalosa – Mayors – Bogotá, Colombia – NYTimes.com]

Alleys and sidewalks, the yin and yang of urban life. [More alleyways]

News Outlets Face Increasing Scrutiny

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Obama and His Baby Mama (sic)-Clip of the video

The slattern’s racist slip even got some coverage in the Wall Street Journal.

For the second time this week, Fox News Channel was driven to respond to criticism over on-air statements about Barack Obama, in this case for screen text that described the Democratic presidential candidate’s wife as “Obama’s baby mama.” The term is often applied pejoratively to unwed mothers.

Television news organizations, facing unprecedented scrutiny, have often expressed contrition for poorly chosen words during this election season.

In a campaign that includes the first viable African-American presidential candidate, the lines of appropriate speech have become fuzzy. News organizations are under pressure from a broad network of self-appointed watchdogs, including organized groups like Media Matters and individuals. These watchdogs are likely to remain vigilant about gaffes, misstatements and potentially biased language through the November vote. Just this week, Gina McCauley, a well-known blogger in Austin, Texas, started michelleobamawatch.com to track the portrayal of Mrs. Obama in the news media.

[From News Outlets Face Increasing Scrutiny in Campaign – WSJ.com]

Things have changed since 1992, indeed. Now there is at least a smidgen of accountability since revealing slips like this one are given a wider audience, quickly.

In a statement Thursday, Fox News’s senior vice president of programming, Bill Shine, said, “A producer on the program exercised poor judgment” in choosing the screen text. The Obama campaign declined to comment.

“I was a little surprised about how quickly it got picked up and turned into a really big thing,” Mr. Koppelman said Thursday. “If it’s not already happening more than it has in previous cycles, I’m sure it will because of technology.”

The phrase baby mama or baby mother is Caribbean in origin, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines it as “the mother of a man’s child, who is not his wife nor (in most cases) his current or exclusive partner.” It has gained wider currency in recent years through use in hip-hop lyrics and celebrity magazines. A movie called “Baby Mama,” starring Tina Fey, has been in theaters since April. The movie is about a single executive who hires another woman to carry her baby.

Obama\'s Baby Mama on Fox

Bulls Hire Del Negro

Seth Anderson1 Comment

John Paxons Hand prints
[John Paxson’s Hand Prints, view large on black here]

Really? Vinny Del Negro? That’s the best coach the Bulls could get for coach number 17 in the franchise’s history?

Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, even Doc Rivers … they all had to start somewhere. The Bulls are hoping that Vinny Del Negro can start his coaching career and finish a Chicago rebuilding project that has hit a roadblock.

The team introduced their new coach on Wednesday. Del Negro had been the Phoenix Suns assistant general manager, but he has no coaching experience. He admitted that fact might be a challenge.

“I think that’s fair,” Del Negro said. “I haven’t coached before. … Winning builds confidence and there’s a young team here that needs a confidence boost, I think. I’m not a magician. I just can’t create things all of a sudden. It’s going to be a daily process. Those are fair questions, I don’t have a problem with that.”

The Bulls missed out on former Suns coach Mike D’Antoni, who chose the New York Knicks over Chicago, and Doug Collins, the ex-Bulls coach who threw his name into the ring and then pulled out.

Coming off the courtship of two experienced coaches, the hiring of someone who hasn’t roamed the sidelines has created a stir in Chicago, but general manager John Paxson isn’t concerned.

[From ESPN – Bulls give Del Negro first coaching job on Wednesday – NBA]

I’m glad the Bulls didn’t hire Larry Brown, glad they didn’t hire Rick Carlisle, glad that Doug Collins decided to stay a middle-of-the-road television analyst spouting platitudes and not become a middle-of-the-road coach screaming platitudes. Avery Johnson would have been an interesting choice, D’Antoni would have been amusing (regular season victories are fun to watch too), Flip Saunders and his face-grimace might have helped the Bulls to the playoffs, and even to the second round. There were others out there with coaching credits, Terry Porter seems like he knows some things of use, but Vinny Del Negro? Really? We’ll see. If the Bulls don’t win 45 games, I wouldn’t be surprised if John Paxson got the boot.

Liege and Lief

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“Liege & Lief” (Fairport Convention)

Liege and Lief has long been a favorite of mine, dating back to the vinyl record era. Still probably in my top 20 favorite albums, if I made a list and checked it twice. Apparently, an “expanded” version is about to come out, with a second disc of crap that wasn’t good enough in 1969, but now will be used to lure suckers like me into repurchasing the album (for the third time!)

John Harris on the story of Fairport Convention’s Liege and Lief:
In 1969, reeling from the shock of a tragic car crash, Fairport Convention recorded an album that would change British folk for ever. John Harris hears the story of Liege and Lief.
… The spark for Fairport taking this watershed turn was the Band’s 1968 album Music from Big Pink, the record that – along with Bob Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes bootleg – brought about a widespread musical volte-face, in which what remained of psychedelia was replaced by a new rootsiness. Among the rock aristocracy, its influence was evident in the Beatles’ ill-fated back-to-basics project Let It Be, the Rolling Stones’ purple patch that began with Beggars Banquet, and Eric Clapton’s decision to call time on Cream.

In Fairport’s case, it convinced them that their early dalliance with transatlantic influences was best forgotten. “Music from Big Pink showed us that Americana was more suited to Americans, and we needed to explore Britannicana, or whatever the equivalent of that was,” says Thompson. “They seemed to nail American roots styles so well, and blend them so seamlessly: country, R&B, blues. At that point, we thought, ‘We’ll never be that good at American music. We should be looking at something more homegrown.’”

Just as Big Pink evoked what the writer Greil Marcus later called “the old, weird America”, so Fairport resolved to connect themselves with an arcane, semi-mystical side of the UK’s history that pop culture had left untouched. Regular trips were made to Cecil Sharp House, the traditional music archive near Regent’s Park in north London, where Hutchings in particular spent hours spent sifting through lyrics and sheet music. “You could hear things as well: old tapes, and vinyl – and cylinder recordings, which people like Vaughan Williams and [composer and folk archivist] Percy Grainger made,” he says. “After that, it wasn’t difficult to believe in those songs and kind of live them.”

The result was music full of a drama that oozed from the traditional songs at the album’s core – the Scots ballad Tam Lin, the Victorian press-gang vignette The Deserter – into the smattering of originals. In terms of emotional power, Liege And Lief peaked with Matty Groves, a 17th-century murder ballad in which a female aristocrat goes to church and seduces the titular peasant lad, only to be informed on and find her outraged husband at the end of the bed. The hapless Groves is challenged to a duel that he promptly loses, and his corpse is joined by that of his lover. The song ends thus: “’A grave, a grave,’ Lord Darnell cried, ‘to put these lovers in/ But bury my lady at the top, for she was of noble kin.’” Christianity, sex, class and murder – not many groups, it was fair to say, did this kind of thing.

sort of the anti-Syd Barrett, in other words, though Pink Floyd wasn’t alone in recording twee tunes:

“There was a lot of airy-fairy, very whimsical stuff happening in the late 60s,” says Ashley Hutchings. “We never really felt part of that. When we made Liege and Lief, it was like Bergman was coming in to direct it. It was The Seventh Seal, not Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was magical, but the magic was elemental.”

More here, including Richard Thompson saying:

“I haven’t listened to it that much, but I kind of know it. I don’t actually need to rehearse it. I could sit down and play it today – I just remember the whole thing, for some reason. It’s just … locked in.”

Paul Pierce is a Tough Hombre

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Rock Art Kells

Bill Simmons, Boston sports fan that he is, was amused by

the way the L.A. fans reacted to Paul Pierce, booing him for four quarters, shouting “faker!” at him and even carrying signs like, “Hey, Pierce, this is the Finals. Not the Oscars!” I’m starting to wonder if KneeGate is going to follow him for the rest of his career. Before it does, allow me to make two points in his defense since I have followed him for 10 years:

1. Before the 2000-01 season, Pierce was stabbed 11 times at a Boston nightclub, suffered a collapsed lung and nearly bled to death while staggering to the hospital. Less than two weeks later, he played in Boston’s first exhibition game. If the same thing had happened to Vince Carter, he would still be on the injured list seven years later.

2. During the 2002-03 season, Pierce got slammed face-first to the floor by Amare Stoudemire, breaking his two front teeth. Thirty minutes later, he was back playing with a mouthpiece. The following day, he underwent emergency dental surgery for seven hours. The day after that, he played against Portland with a mouthpiece and ended up hitting the game-winner.

In my opinion, he’s not only one of the toughest Celtics ever, he’s one of the toughest Boston athletes ever. Not counting Tankapalooza 2007 (when the team shelved Pierce with a knee injury for half the season even when he probably could have played), Pierce missed just 21 games in nine seasons and played through a variety of injuries and ailments for mostly horrendous teams. So for anyone to insinuate that he is either (A) weak or (B) someone who would milk an injury, is just insane. On top of that, for the Lakers’ fans to have the gall to question any other NBA star’s character is three times as insane. In retrospect, Pierce’s only mistake was not diffusing the Lakers fans before Game 3 by settling with his right knee out of court and buying it a $4 million diamond ring.

[From ESPN Page 2 – Simmons: You want answers? I think you’re entitled]

Before the playoffs had started, I predicted a Lakers-Celtics Finals (even as a Bulls/Spurs fan), and speculated if this could be a Lakers team I could root for, a first since the Showtime Lakers of the 80s. Ummm, no. Go Celtics!

By this stage of a playoff matchup in any sport, often one’s favorite team is out of the running, and to make the game(s) more interesting, one team gets selected as the team to root for, based on a myriad of minor factors, and not necessarily logic. I’ve never been a Celtic fan previously, and even though I don’t think much of Doc Rivers as a coach, enough of the Celtics have outsized personalities (KG, Pierce, Eddie House, Ray Allen, Poe, even Scott Pollard in a suit) that I am hoping for a Boston championship by Game 6. We’ll see.

Oh, and the rest of Bill Simmons article about Game 3 (and previous) is worth reading, I chuckled a few times, and so can you…

Precaution Hombres

No, Johnny, No

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Chuck Berry is Cool

Chuck Berry is cool, as we’ve opined before.

For a US presidential candidate, there is nothing better than a rocking anthem to pump up the crowds and project the sort of imagery that could help win the keys to the White House.

The Republican hopeful John McCain may be pushing 72, but his “town hall” events can be as noisy as the stadiums where Barack Obama appears on stage to the strains of U2’s “Beautiful Day.” But the McCain camp is having trouble settling on a suitable campaign anthem. After searching for months, it finally picked “Johnny B Goode” – Chuck Berry’s rock ‘n’ roll classic from 1958. The high-power guitar licks and “Go, Johnny, go” chorus put a spring in Mr McCain’s step. When asked why he chose it, he quipped: “It might be because it is the only one [the artist] hasn’t complained about us using.”

Berry, 81, may not have complained about his song being appropriated by Mr McCain, but he has made it clear he would prefer Barack Obama in the White House. “America has finally come to this point where you can pick a man of colour and that not be a drawback,” Berry said. “It’s no question, myself being a man of colour. I mean, you have to feel good about it.”

The anointment of Mr Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate was, he added, “definitely a proud and successful moment for all the people of this country – not just black people, but Americans in general”.

Berry, known as the “father of rock ‘n’ roll”, recounted: “In the Fifties there were certain places we couldn’t ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in White House.” “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last,” he added, quoting Martin Luther King.

There was a groan at McCain headquarters as it suffered yet another musical derailment. An attempt to use Abba’s “Take A Chance On Me” also bombed. “We played it a couple times and it’s my understanding [Abba] went berserk,” Mr McCain said.

[From No, Johnny, No: Chuck Berry joins chorus of musicians snubbing McCain’s campaign – Americas, World – The Independent]

Probably because Republicans and artists don’t mix well. I’m hard pressed to think of a prominent rock musician who is a die-hard Republican.

Via Gordon@Alternate Brain

Oil Industry and Congress

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Do Not Oil Probe Shaft
[Do Not Oil Probe Shaft]

Oil Industry and Congress: Bitter friends and fast enemies, err, something like that. Both sides of the aisle have an interest in appearing to do something about the ginormous oil industry profits, and subsequent high gas prices for consumers. Fortunately, they managed to avoid actually making any changes.

A package of measures targeting oil-company profits and market speculators failed to reach a vote in the Senate Tuesday, as Republicans blocked Congress’s first effort to address a record surge in oil prices.

Congress and the oil and financial industries are locked in an escalating public confrontation over where to fix blame for oil’s run-up. But industry lobbyists are also huddling privately with lawmakers to horse-trade over measures that could attack the oil issue and work to industry’s advantage.

One way the oil industry could be a winner in the end is through an easing of restrictions on domestic drilling. Republicans have long pushed for more domestic drilling as one response to high oil prices — although it could take years for any new U.S. oil find to have an impact on global prices. Industry lobbyists hope exploration will prove newly palatable to Democrats who are under pressure from voters as well as lobbyists from airline, trucking and manufacturing industries.

[From Lawmakers, Industry Clash And Cooperate as Oil Plans Take Shape – WSJ.com]

The NYT had a slightly different angle on the story, concentrating on the $17,000,000,000 worth of tax breaks the poor, poor oil companies require to conduct business. Without the subsidies, Big Oil would go bankrupt in a minute or two. Luckily for Big Oil, Congress is happy continuing the dole.

A Democratic proposal to impose heavier taxes on big oil companies stalled in the Senate on Tuesday as Republicans and Democrats offered different ideas on how to deal with soaring energy costs.

A bill that would have rolled back some $17 billion in tax breaks on Big Oil and pressured the companies to invest in new energy sources by hitting them with a windfall-profits tax if they did not failed to get enough votes to move forward. Fifty-one senators voted to bring the measure up for consideration, but that was nine short of the number needed under Senate rules. Forty-three senators, most of them Republicans, voted “no.”

The oil-tax proposal was one of two energy-related bills that failed to advance. The other was a proposal to amend the Internal Revenue Code by providing “incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes,” as the measure to promote new energy sources was officially described. The vote to take up that legislation was 50-44, or 10 “yes” votes fewer than necessary.

The votes were against a backdrop of $4-a-gallon gasoline and oil prices that have gone over $139 a barrel just at the start of the summer vacation season.

[From 2 Energy Bills, Including Windfall Tax, Stall in Senate – NYTimes.com]

Because the bill was so important, everyone didn’t bother to show up to vote:

Senate Democratic leaders were reportedly resigned to defeat on the oil-tax bill and did not ask Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, who just completed their months-long competition for the presidential nomination, to show up for the vote. The other four absentees were John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee for president; Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Democrats who have been ill.

Six Republicans voted “yes” on the oil-tax bill. They were Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, John W. Warner of Virginia, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, both of Maine. Only two Democrats voted “no,” Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Harry Reid of Nevada. Mr. Reid, the majority leader, may have voted “no” in a parliamentary move to preserve his right to bring up the proposal again.

Back to the Wall Street Journal, which notes both parties heavily depend upon lobbyists to help legislators make informed decisions. Well, informed in the sense of campaign contributions and three hour luncheons.

As the various proposals fly, lawmakers are choosing sides based partly on whether oil or finance companies contribute most to their home states.

Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has investigators looking into the role of big Wall Street brokerage houses in oil trading. Other Democrats have focused their attacks on oil companies.

Oil- and finance-industry lobbyists have blanketed Washington with advertising deflecting blame for the crisis. In a letter to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), Exxon Mobil Corp. blamed financial speculators for more than half the price of a barrel of crude.

The American Petroleum Institute is running newspaper ads depicting a crying baby, to imply that oil-company taxes will hurt consumers most. The API also is touting its study by Robert Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton, showing that Middle America holds most “Big Oil” shares. The trade group declined to comment.

Outside of camera range, lawmakers are turning to industry lobbyists for guidance on problems rooted in the opaque economics of commodities markets.

[snip]

Congressional staffers in both parties acknowledged the cooperation. “You do not want to do Band-Aid strategies,” said a House staffer. “We’re trying to talk to everyone we need to.”

Clash on Safety of BPA in Plastic Items

Seth Anderson0 comment

Do Not Attempt This At Home

So an industry-funded report found no problem? How novel! And the FDA firmly supporting the industry? How novel!

Government experts and lawmakers clashed at a hearing Tuesday over the safety of a chemical used in plastic baby bottles, as the science indicating health risks seemed not conclusive enough to meet the burden of proof required for a U.S. ban.

The chemical, bisphenol A, or BPA, makes plastic hard and shatterproof and helps prevent corrosion in cans. It is used in hundreds of consumer products, including plastic baby bottles, plastic food containers and soda cans.

The latest concern about BPA emerged in April when the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program released a draft report concluding that small amounts of the chemical could be linked to health and developmental problems. Those problems include early puberty, changes in the prostate gland and behavioral changes found in animal studies that warranted “some concern” for exposure to fetuses, infants and children.

“The possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed,” said John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, at Tuesday’s hearing.

The program’s findings contradicted some earlier industry-funded animal studies that found minimal concern.

[From Clash Arises on Safety of BPA in Plastic Items – WSJ.com]

Here is where Senator Clinton can help the nation: pass this bill

Led by New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer and supported by fellow New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, the senators want their BPA-Free Kids Act of 2008 to be part of a larger bill that would reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Bills to overhaul the CPSC were passed by the House and Senate in differing forms late last year and earlier this year following a string of recalled children’s products that put the agency under fire. If signed into law, the overhaul would provide the agency with more funding and greater authority, while making data more transparent and boosting fine limitations for manufacturers.

Part of the clash in how the hundreds of BPA studies are viewed stems from the manner in which they were conducted. Many have been small and weren’t conducted according to regulatory standards, critics say.


“SIGG – Green Traveler Classic Water Bottle” (SIGG)

Bike Safety in Chicago

Seth Anderson0 comment

Cops on Bikes
[Cops on Bikes]

Maybe when the police finish re-training cars to avoid hitting pedestrians in crosswalks, they can devote some resources to the ongoing automobile vs. bicycle wars. I’m never riding without a helmet again, that’s for sure.

A ghost bike marks the last place Clinton Miceli, 22, rode his bike.

“When you got to know him, he was just hilarious and full of life. He had everything going for him in this world. For him to go, it’s just a shock for all of us,” said Rob Mach, Clinton Miceli’s roommate.

Miceli was a graphic designer. He was riding his bike home from work Monday evening. A man in an SUV opened his car door in front of Miceli. Miceli was thrown into the path of oncoming traffic. He died from head injuries.

“He just got into it this last summer, getting around the city. He thought it was a great mode of transportation. He was very careful about it,” said Mach.

On Tuesday morning at the intersection of Broadway and Patterson, another cyclist was hit. Chicago police say the CTA bus driver attempted to pass the bike. The cyclist survived that crash.

“People are out there driving with cell phones. People are out there driving, not paying attention, not being prepared to stop, not being prepared to watch,” said Rob Sadowsky, executive director, Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.

[snip]

“It’s usually people not paying attention or thinking they can out-speed you around the corner or something and turn right in front of you,” said Jennifer Gutowski.

In the incident Tuesday morning, the CTA bus driver was cited and suspended by the CTA.

The driver who opened the door in front of Miceli Monday night was also ticketed. A wake and funeral for Miceli are planned for later this week.

[From abc7chicago.com: 2 serious accidents highlight bike safety 6/11/08]

When I spent a few days in Seattle, I was amazed at the pedestrian’s power. Cars would stop hundreds of yards from any walker, even ones like me who were jaywalking. Bike riders were given wide berths by cars, and never tail-gated. I talked to some locals while riding public transit, and they all said drivers were well trained to stop for pedestrians, but that pedestrians never jaywalked because the police gave out a lot of tickets for this transgression. Toronto is the same: cars are very polite to pedestrians and bikes alike. Chicago? Not so much. Car is king, and you’d best not forget it.

Photo of the young man here

BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions

Seth Anderson0 comment

Speaking of impeachment…

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC’s Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted. To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq. The president’s Democratic opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.

Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: “The money that’s gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious.

“It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.”

In the run-up to the invasion one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth seven billion that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company, which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.
Unusually only Halliburton got to bid – and won.

[From BBC NEWS | Middle East | BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions]

Strange about that gag order, almost like the Bush-ites don’t want to find widespread corruption, waste, and mismanagement of tax payer dollars, at least before Obama takes office.