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Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Music Week

September archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42995 [42976] rated (+19), 26 [23] unrated (+3).

After an abbreviated Speaking of Which yesterday, this is an even shorter Music Week. For most of last week, I've been prepping the house for arrival of a contractor, to fix the collapsed ceiling in a small upstairs bedroom. Main thing there was moving 25 years of accumulated living out to somewhere else. Some things got thrown away, but most -- including three bookcases of books -- just had to find temporary storage elsewhere. Contractor arrived today, and should have another couple days of work, after which I intend to refinish (mostly paint) everything, including a closet that long been the most wretched corner of a 100-year-old house.

So I haven't had much time to listen to music, or to write. Expect no more (and probably less) for next week, and probably the week after -- hopefully the bedroom will be done by then, but I expect project repercussions to spread far and wide. I'm looking forward to these weeks, figuring they'll produce more tangible accomplishments than I've felt from writing all year. Indeed, I'm rushing this out now, so I can go back to my closet and get a couple more hours of work in. Downside is that it can be physically wearing.

One minor accomplishment last week was when I fixed one of my "inventory reduction" dinners on Saturday: I turned shrimp and vegetables from the freezer, the end of a bag of dried pasta, and some aging items in the refrigerator into a small dinner of: shrimp with feta cheese, penne puttanesca, pisto manchego, and a lemon-caper sauce with green beans, artichoke hearts, and prosciutto; followed by a chocolate cake with black walnut frosting (one of my mother's standards).

I have nothing much to say about this week's music, other than that the Ahmad Jamal records were suggested by a question. I thought "why bother?" at first, then "why not?"

New records reviewed this week:

Benjamin Boone: Confluence: The Ireland Sessions (2023 [2024], Origin): Alto saxophonist, has some good records, especially the pair backing poet Philip Levine. Trio with bass and drums plus scattered guests, including singer JoYne on three songs. They're nice enough, but the saxophone is better. B+(***) [cd]

Michael Dease: Found in Space: The Music of Gregg Hill (2022 [2024], Origin): Trombonist, also baritone sax, has more than one album per year since 2010. Hill is a Michigan-based composer with no records of his own, but several of his students have released tributes to him recently, and this is Dease's second. Large group, eleven pieces, and probably the best yet. B+(***) [cd]

Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa (2024, Origin): Brazilian singer-songwriter, plays piano/keyboards, recorded two albums 1988-90 as part of Duo Fênix, solo albums after that. As the title implies, the atmosphere here is familiarly Brazilian, but there is much more going on, including interaction of many dramatic voices, which suggest opera (or at least concept album). Not something I feel up to figuring out, but seems exceptional. B+(***) [cd]

Heems: Veena (2024, Veena Sounds): New York rapper Himanshu Suri, formerly of Das Racist, named his album (like his label) after his mother. His earlier 2024 album, Lafandar, tops my non-jazz list. This one is iffier, and not just because they redo the old phone message thing. B+(***) [sp]

Jason Kao Hwang: Soliloquies: Unaccompanied Pizzicato Violin Improvisations (2024, True Sound): Exactly what the title promises, which sets an upper bound on how enjoyable this can be, but he comes remarkably close to hitting the mark. Hwang became our greatest living jazz violinist when Billy Bang passed, and is a safe bet to maintain that claim until he, too, is gone. A- [cd]

Miranda Lambert: Postcards From Texas (2024, Republic Nashville): Country singer-songwriter, debut 2005, probably the most consistent one since, even if you count her Pistol Annies side project. Another batch of good songs. A- [sp]

Matt Panayides Trio: With Eyes Closed (2023 [2024], Pacific Coast Jazz): Guitarist, based in New York, fourth album since 2010, a trio with Dave LaSpina (bass) and Anthony Pinciotti (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Anne Sajdera: It's Here (2024, Bijuri): Pianist, some solo (two tracks), some trio (two more), some with various horns (four). B+(*) [cd]

Jason Stein: Anchors (2022 [2024], Tao Forms): Bass clarinet player, based in Chicago, leads a trio with Joshua Abrams (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums). Billed as his "most personal album to date," impressive when he hits his stride, but seems to back off a bit much. B+(***) [cd]

Nilüfer Yanya: My Method Actor (2024, Ninja Tune): British pop singer-songwriter, father is Turkish, third album. Didn't grab me right away, like the first two, but snuck up. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

  • None.

Old music:

Charles Bell and the Contemporary Jazz Quartet: Another Dimension (1963, Atlantic): Pianist (1933-2012), only released two albums, one called The Charles Bell Contemporary Jazz Quartet in 1961, this this one a couple years later. Four originals, covers of "Django," "Oleo," and "My Favorite Things," with guitar (Bill Smith), bass (Ron Carter), and drums (Allen Blairman). B+(***) [sp]

Ahmad Jamal: Poinciana (1958 [1963], Argo): Early compilation LP, took the title song from Live at the Pershing, then tacked on seven songs from his September sets at the Spotlite (released in 1959 as Portfolio of Ahmad Jamal; Ahmad's Blues also comes from the Spotlite stand, but only two songs there are dupes from here). So this seems like a sampler for more definitive editions. B+(**) [r]

The Ahmad Jamal Trio: The Awakening (1970, Impulse!): With Jamil Nasser (bass) and Frank Grant (drums). B+(**) [r]

Ahmad Jamal: Live in Paris 1992 (1992 [1993], Birdology): French label, founded 1992 and ran up to 2005, associated with Disques Dreyfus. Mostly trio with James Cammack (bass guitar) and David Bowler (drums), with alternates on one track. B+(*) [sp]

Ahmad Jamal: I Remember Duke, Hoagy & Strayhorn (1994 [1995], Telarc): Covers as noted, plus a couple originals along those lines. With Ephriam Wolfolk (bass) and Arti Dixson (drums), but they don't add much. B+(*) [sp]

Ahmad Jamal: The Essence, Part 1 (1994-95 [1995], Birdology): The first of three volumes the label collected, this from live sets in Paris -- six quartet tracks with piano, bass (James Cammack), drums (Idris Muhammad), and percussion (Manolo Badrena), plus two tracks from New York with a different bassist (Jamil Nasser) and George Coleman (tenor sax). I wish we had more of the latter -- his bits are really terrific -- but without him I'm still reminded of how bright Jamal's piano is. A- [sp]

Ahmad Jamal: Big Byrd: The Essence, Part 2 (1994-95 [1996], Birdology): More quartet tracks from the same dates in Paris and New York, with guests Joe Kennedy Jr. (violin) on one track, Donald Byrd (trumpet) on the other (the 15:13 title track). B+(***) [sp]

Ahmad Jamal: Nature: The Essence, Part 3 (1997 [1998], Birdology): A later studio session from Paris, with the same quartet -- James Cammack (bass), Idris Muhammad (drums), Manolo Badrena (percussion) -- joined by Othello Molineaux on steel drum. Stanley Turrentine (tenor sax) drops in for one track, and is terrific. B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week (incomplete):

  • Michael Dease: Found in Space: The Music of Gregg Hill (Origin) [09-20]
  • Doug Ferony: Alright Okay You Win (Ferony Enterprizes Music) [10-01]
  • Alden Hellmuth: Good Intentions (Fresh Sound New Talent) [09-08]
  • Randy Ingram: Aries Dance (Sounderscore) [10-18]
  • Ryan Keberle & Catharsis: Music Is Connection (Alternate Side) [10-18]
  • Peter Lenz: Breathe: Music for Large Ensembles (GambsART) [11-08]
  • Hayoung Lyou: The Myth of Katabasis (Endectomorph Music) [11-15]
  • Yuka Mito: How Deep Is the Ocean (Nana Notes) [10-11]
  • Simon Moullier: Elements of Light (Candid) [09-20]
  • Nacka Forum: Peaceful Piano (Moserobie) [10-18]
  • Dann Zinn: Two Roads (Ridgeway) [10-04]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, September 23, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened: 2024-09-17 2:05 PM. Wrapping it up, rather arbitrarily, on Monday afternoon. I feared I would have little time to work on my weekly posts this week (and next, and the week after, when we expect visitors), so I limited my hopes to picking up a few links for future reference, collected in my spare time. This has grown larger than I expected, especially as I opened up and wrote several lengthy comments. Such informal writing comes easy, and feels substantive, where my more ambitious concepts so often flounder. So I count this as therapeutic, regardless of whether it's of value to anyone else.

My one ambitious concept this week was to write up an outline of an introduction, which would provide some kind of "executive summary" of current events. As events change little from week to week -- for some time now I've been starting each week with a skeletal template, which I refine and reuse -- it occurred to me that I could come up with a boilerplate introduction, which I could then copy and edit from week to week, but would cover the main points I keep returning to in scattered comments.

I came up with that idea back on Thursday, but here it is Monday and I still haven't started on it. So maybe next week? I'll start with a blanket endorsement of Harris and all Democrats, not because I especially like them but because they're the only practical defense against Republicans, who are set on a program to do you great harm, and in some cases get you killed. Then we'll talk about inequality and war, which top my list of the world's problems -- not that we can ignore the latter, but fixing them is really hard without ending war and reducing inequality. And when it comes to war and inequality, no example is more horrific than Israel, which as you'll read below, took a sudden, bizarre turn for the worse last week. Back in October, I explained my plan for ending the Gaza war. My thinking has evolved a bit since then, and it would be good to update it and keep it current.

I woke up early (way too early for me) Tuesday morning, and found this in my mailbox from Mazin Qumsiyeh (I've replaced URLs with linked article titles):

A regional war has just been officially declared and will likely soon become a global war. This accelerated with Netanyahu's refusal to do a prisoner swap and ceasefire deal for Gaza for 11 months (even against the wishes of his military commanders) with no prospect of that changing which meant continuation of the genocide and conflict with Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq (yes supportive resistance forces to Israeli imperial hegemony). The Israeli regime escalated with a series of terrorist attacks on Lebanon including rigging pagers and walkie-talkies to explode killing and injuring scores of civilians. Then attacked Beirut apoartment buildings, then in the past 24 hours attacked homes throughout Lebanon killing 500 Lebanese civilians (most women and children like in Gaza) Israel escalates its military attacks in Lebanon, targeting residential areas and civilians with intense raids.

And yes the resistance from Lebanon and Gaza continues to target Israeli military forces. And attacks on the West Bank continue so that they can depopulate us Inside the brutal siege of Jenin.

An Interfaith Dispatch From the West Bank: Rabbis for Ceasefire and Hindus for Human Rights make a peace pilgrimage (mentions us): An interfaith dispatch from the West Bank.

The prospect and the solution? See this just published very short article of mine in Z Magazine A path forward or listen to this interview 5 Sept Heroes and Patriots Mazin Qumsiyeh and Abba Solomon, heroes and patriots or this talk 22 Sept UU Brevard, Flordia 9 22 24 Decolonization of people and nature in Palestine and globally, with Prof Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Question: How many more thousands of children have to be massacred (so far 20,000) before the world governments act?

Reminder: THIS DID NOT START 7 OCTOBER 2023 . . IT STARTED IN 1948 AND EARLIER WITH ETHNIC CLEANSING AND COLONIZATION. See Frequently asked questions, answers, and documentation on Gaza.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Michael Arria:

    • [09-19] Jill Stein leads Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in swing states as Palestine supporters weigh choices amid Gaza genocide: "A recent poll shows Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein beating Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in multiple swing states as pro-Palestinian voters weigh the upcoming U.S. presidential race." I'm skeptical of any such polling, and not just because third-party support tends to evaporate in the closing days of the season. The article doesn't go into much detail about either the poll details or the question of how many voters are we really talking about here. CAIR estimates that there are over 2.5 million Muslim voters in the US (75% born in the US, 20-25% African-American), so about 1.5% of all registered voters. Contrary to the headline, the CAIR poll shows Harris slightly ahead of Stein, 29.4%% to 29.1%, trailed by Trump (11.2%), Cornel West (4.2%), and Chase Oliver (the Libertarian, 0.8%), with 16.5% undecided and 8.8% not voting.

    • [09-19] The Shift: Uncommitted Movement says it won't back Harris in election. If you read the fine print, you'll see that while they refuse to endorse Harris, they "oppose" Trump, and are "not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken electoral college system." They don't talk about not voting, but if you're leaning that way, please read the parts about Trump again.

    • [09-17] The Shift: Nearly 60% of Israelis say they'd vote for Trump: "Former President and GOP nominee Donald Trump remains a popular figure in Israel. A recent poll found that 58% of Israelis would vote for Trump, while just 25% would vote for Harris."

      This week Trump will give two speeches to pro-Israel audiences.

      First, he'll speak to a group of Jewish supporters in DC about countering antisemitism.

      Jewish Insider's Matt Kassel reports that Orthodox businessman Yehuda Kaploun and his business partner Ed Russo will host the event.

      A source told Kassel that the event will allow Trump to speak with Jewish leaders "about his plans to combat the wave of antisemitism and antisemitic behavior and enforce the laws for religious liberty to all."

      Miriam Adelson is expected to attend. The GOP megadonor is reportedly set to spend more than $100 million to elect Trump in November.

      In DC Trump will also address the Israeli American Council's (IAC) national convention. The IAC is led by lan Carr, who served as the envoy to combat antisemitism under Trump. Its largest donor is Adelson.

      I understand why people are disturbed the level of reflexive support for Israel that Harris has consistently shown, and how tempting it is to punish her at the ballot box, but the candidate who is most under Israel's thumb is clearly Trump. Harris at least has the presence of mind and decency to decry and bemoan the war, and offer that it must stop. Trump's allegiance is not just for sale here. It's done been sold.

  • Juan Cole: [09-17] A centrist Muslim alliance against an extremist Israel?

  • Edo Konrad: [09-20] What Israelis don't want to hear about Iran and Hezbollah: "For years, Israeli expert Ori Goldberg has tried to challenge commonly-held assumptions about the Islamic Republic and its allies. Will anyone listen?"

  • Daniel Larison: [09-19] A rare foreign policy win is there for the taking: "Iran's new reformist president wants to negotiate with the West; we should take him up on his request."

  • Jim Lobe: [09-18] 42 years ago today: the Sabra & Shatila massacre.

  • Nicole Narea: [09-18] What we know about the pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon and Syria: Unfortunately, Vox doesn't seem to know very much about this wave of exploding tech devices -- hundreds of pagers on Tuesday, followed by thousands of walkie-talkies on Wednesday, each packed with remotely-detonated explosives, and allegedly distributed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria -- and more importantly, isn't able or willing to set the context and draw meaningful conclusions. Their subhed: "It's a dangerous escalation in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel as the war in Gaza rages on."

    The first thing that needs to be noted is that the "conflict" is extremely asymmetrical. The background is that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, intervening in a civil war to bolster a Phalangist (fascist) party thought to be favorable to Israel, which backed out of Beirut but continued to occupy southern Lebanon, up to its withdrawal in 2000 (except for a small sliver of territory[*], which remains as a sore point, which seems to be the point). Hezbollah developed as the most effective resistance organization to Israeli occupation. Once Israel withdrew (except for that sliver, see what I mean?), Hezbollah's mission was complete, but since Israel never signed any peace treaty with Lebanon, they continued to organize as a deterrent against another Israeli attack (as happened in 2006). Since then, except for that sliver, the only times Hezbollah has fired (mostly missiles) at Israel has been in response to Israel's periodic attacks on Lebanon. I'm convinced that Israel does this simply to provoke responses that they can spin into their cover story on Iran: Americans still bear a grudge against Iran over 1979, a feud they've relentlessly stoked since the 1990s, as it gives Israel a threat which is beyond its means, thus binding an American alliance that provides cover for their real agenda, which is to erase the Palestinian presence in all of Israel.

    The US could end this farce immediately by making a separate peace with Iran (and for good measure, with its alleged proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen). Obama took one step in that direction with the JCPOA "nuclear deal," which was the only realistic solution to "the Iranian nuclear threat" -- which Israelis had played up since the early 1990s[**]. But Netanyahu denounced the deal, and used the full power of the Israel lobby to undermine it, leading to Trump's withdrawal, and Biden's failure to reinstate. Had Israel been serious about the "nuclear threat," they would have celebrated JCPOA. Had the US understood Israel's objectives, they would have extended their "deal" with Iran to resolve other disputes and normalize relations.

    I had several other points in mind when I started writing this, but they're more obvious from the reporting, which I'll continue to collect below. Chief among them is that this is a patently Israeli operation, combining as it does a fascination with high tech and completely oblivious disregard for its impact on others, or even for the damage it will do to the future reputation of all Israelis. This is indiscriminate terrorism, on a huge scale. Exactly who in Israel is immediately responsible for this isn't yet clear, but whoever it is should be held responsible, first and foremost by the Israeli people, but until that happens, it is not unreasonable to sanction the state. Any nation, like the US, which claims to be opposed to terrorism would be remiss in not doing so.

    The most similar event I can recall was the Chicago Tylenol murders of 1982, which was probably the work of a single rogue individual (although it was followed by several copycat crimes, and was never definitively solved). The maker of Tylenol (Johnson & Johnson) took extraordinary measures to restore consumer trust (see How the Tylenol murders of 1982 changed the way we consume medication). While similar in terms of sowing mistrust, this case is orders of magnitude larger, and is likely to prove much more difficult for Israel to manage. No one ever thought for a moment that Johnson & Johnson wanted to poison customers, but Netanyahu's hands are not just tainted but dripping blood. Even if he is not personally responsible for this, the war and genocide are clearly his work, in conception and commission, and in his consistent refusal to end or even limit it. Moreover, there is no reason to trust Israel to investigate itself -- as it has claimed many times in the past to do, covering up and/or excusing many serious crimes along the way.

    [*] This sliver is called Shebaa Farms. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy this bit of land, arguing that it was originally part of the Syrian Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967 (and later annexed, contrary to international law; it is now better known as Golan Heights). See Why is there a disputed border between Lebanon and Israel?.

    [**] What changed for Israel in 1990 was that after Saddam Hussein was defeated in Kuwait and bottled up and disarmed, they needed a new "existential threat" to replace Iraq and maintain American support. While the Ayatollahs weren't as chummy with Israel as the Shah had been, they maintained cordial relations all through the 1980s -- by far the most anti-American period of Iran's revolution. Israel helped arm Iran as a counterweight to Iraq's ambitions (including their role in Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, which gave them insight into America's schizoid reaction to overthrowing the CIA-installed Shah). Trita Parsi explains all of this in Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007).

    • CNN [Tara John, et al.]: [09-18] How did pagers explode in Lebanon and why was Hezbollah using them? Here's what we know.

    • CNN [Charbel Mallo, et al.]: [09-18] Israel behind deadly pager explosions that targeted Hezbollah and injured thousands in Lebanon.

    • Caitlin Johnstone: [09-17] Turning people into involuntary suicide bombers to fight terrorism.

    • Daniel Larison: [09-18] Israel terrorizes Lebanon: "This was a reckless attack that makes a major war between Israel and Hezbollah much more likely."

    • Nikita Mazurov: A brief history of booby-trapping electronics to blow up.

    • Jonathan Ofir: [09-18] Israel's attack on Lebanon using exploding electronics is part of a long history and strategy of targeting civilians: "Israel's latest attack on Lebanon represents an expansion of its Dahiya doctrine which intentionally targets civilians to send a political message."

    • Paul R Pillar: [09-20] Wider war closer after Israel's attack on Lebanon.

    • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-18] I scraped this off Facebook.

      A friend asked me how I come to say that Israel targeted civilians with their attack on pagers purchased by Hezbollah.

      Here is my response:

      So let's start with this: being a Hezbollah "operative" does not make one a legitimate target nor does it mean you're not a civilian. Hezbollah operatives include clerks, messengers, secretaries, even medical workers. Bear in mind, Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government. Its activities cover a lot more than military actions. Therefore, targeting Lebanese people for their connection to Hezbollah is no different from targeting the janitor in the IDF's Tel Aviv headquarters. It's targeting civilians.

      Second, I am told by people I know and have seen it confirmed by at least two Lebanese journalists that many recipients of these pagers are not military. Israel certainly knows that.

      Third, Israel detonated these pagers en masse. They certainly knew they were sure to be in populated areas, with women and children nearby, but they certainly did NOT know who actually had each pager. That's not collateral damage. That's intentionally targeting civilians.

      Any ambiguity in any of this is negated by the fact that this is a blatant violation of international law, specifically the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons which explicitly bars booby-trapping ordinary items. Israel is a High Contracting Party to Article II, where this prohibition is seen:

      4. "Booby-trap" means any device or material which is designed, constructed or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.

      3. It is prohibited in all circumstances to use any mine, booby-trap or other device which is designed or of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.

      4. Weapons to which this Article applies shall strictly comply with the standards and limitations specified in the Technical Annex with respect to each particular category.

      5. It is prohibited to use mines, booby-traps or other devices which employ a mechanism or device specifically designed to detonate the munition by the presence of commonly available mine detectors as a result of their magnetic or other non-contact influence during normal use in detection operations.

      I'm very comfortable calling this the deliberate targeting of civilians.

    • Steven Simon: [09-18] Exploding pagers in Lebanon: taste of what's yet to come?

    Israel followed up the pager/walkie-talkie attacks with another round of bombing Lebanon, going all the way to Beirut. Some articles on this:

  • Annelle Sheline: [09-18] MBS: no Saudi-Israel normalization until Palestinians get a state: "The Kingdom's crown prince throws cold water on Biden's 'grand bargain,' days after Oman does the same." However:

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Ramzy Baroud:

  • Medea Benjamin/Nicholas JS Davies: [09-17] Can the world save Palestine from US-Israeli genocide? Refers to a UN General Assembly resolution, which passed on 9/18:

  • Jonathan Cook: [09-20] Jewish Chronicle scandal: why was there no uproar over past pro-Israel disinformation? "Despite a deeply problematic track record, the paper's fake news is making waves only now, after it printed claims based on forged Hamas documents."

  • Georgia Gee: These human rights defenders were hacked by Pegasus. Now they want police to charge the spyware maker. "So far, no one has been able to hold the notorious Israeli spyware firm accountable for complicity in human rights abuses."

  • David Hearst: [09-11] How Israel's genocide in Gaza is creating enemies on all sides: "Netanyahu's refusal to end the war on Gaza and settlers' terrorism in the West Bank have sowed the seeds of hatred across the region."

  • Ziyad Motala: [09-12] The US must allow the World Court to adjudicate on Israel's genocide: "Israeli diplomats have reportedly been instructed to push Washington to scupper South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice."

  • Mazin Qumsiyeh: Links from his latest newsletters, one new, most old, but his writings rarely lose their relevance, as new events more often than not just confirm his insights.

    • [01-01] 2024: Year-end report, personal achievements (research papers, etc.), plans for the coming year.

    • [2023-12-29] Hope for 2024.

    • [2023-11-12] Are we being duped to focus only on Gaza suffering? This is an even bigger question today, as coverage of Gaza has settled into a mind-numbing tedium while Israelis have escalated attacks on the West Bank, and working hard to provoke a war with Hezbollah which will only further cloud their operations against Palestinians. The first two paragraphs here (my bold) are so accurate one has to wonder about all the pundits back then who were (and in many cases still are) clueless.

      Israel's genocide of Gaza is intentional, planned and ongoing with no sign of slowing down. The contrary, with no water, food and medicine it is accelerating. Israel leaders boast openly that they do not care about what the UN, ICC, or ICJ say. Israeli fascist leaders say they do not care what statements are issued by governments. Nor do they care if public pressure causes some western leaders to moderate their "language" stating there is a "humanitarian catastrophe" unfolding in Gaza (without naming the perpetrator and continuing to support physically the genocide). Israel actually can use the humanitarian catastrophe (as if it is an act of God not their agency) as bargaining chips. The focus on "ceasefire negotiations" is actually a very clever strategy to continue the genocidal occupation and for impunity from facing tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

      Israeli leaders are crystal clear about their crimes and they get their way by genocide and total state terrorism against populations. If you have any doubt, listen to them (see below). They even say openly that if Hizbollah continues its resistance in South Lebanon, then all of Lebanon will pay a devastating price and Beirut will be like Gaza (i.e. totally devastated). Israeli military spokesmen gave the same threats to cities in the West Bank like Jenin and Tulkarem and even Ramallah. These are not idle threats. Many were complicit with Israeli apartheid regime by suppressing the truth and giving weapons to commit genocide. According to Israeli leaders global public opinion and "diplomatic" pressure will not end its carnage done to promote colonialism and greed. Many human rights advocates are at a loss as to how to end the carnage. While people focus on the carnage, few address its underlying cause. It is like focusing on suffering in concentration camps without identifying the source of that suffering (or even worse blaming the victims).

      Next line is a bit inflammatory ("Extreme nationalism leads to genocide: Nazis and Zionists"), but the error there is assuming causality from consequences. Extreme nationalism may be a necessary precondition, but something more is also required: the hubris of unchecked, unaccountable power. Plenty of kneejerk nationalists all around the world, but in Israel they've achieved a sense of invincibility unmatched since Hitler's Germany. That one exemplar claims to be for Jews and the other against just how unimportant the category is.

    • [2023-07-14] Lebanon & Palestine: A trip report.

    • [2023-07-03] Hope: present and future: Starts with an Israeli atrocity which, needless to say, predates the Oct. 7 Hamas revolt, and the even greater Israeli atrocities since then.

    • [2023-06-29] Changing ourselves: "As a zoologist and geneticist I am always puzzled about human (optimistically named Homo sapiens) behavior."

    • [09-22] End of empire? His grasp of US politics is less assured here. While his critique of Trump is sound enough, his points against the Democrats are harsh where I would be more generous. To pick out two of five:

      1. Harris courting of the lobby and supporting genocide undermines any remnant of illusion progressives,
      2. the Democrat party is corrupt and worked hand in glove with republicans against allowing other parties.

      The American political system is such that it is impossible for anyone to win without picking up a whiff of corruption. While some Democrats play that game as adeptly as Republicans, and when they can, shower their donors with favors as readily, most also see and feel some obligation to serve their constituents, or more generally "all the people." One thing nearly all Democrats have in common is their loathing for Trump and his shock troops, and this is almost always due to how repulsive they find the effect of his programs on ordinary people. The Israel lobby has done a masterful job of disappearing Palestinian humanity, but most Democrats can still see through that veil -- and, unlike most Republicans, once they see they will care and act. It's not unreasonable to hope that eventually their leaders, including Harris, will follow their rank and file [there's a good Gandhi quote I could look up and insert here]. This may seem like faint hope, but Qumsiyah has written eloquently about his hopes. I'm not going to deny that Harris, following Biden, has been complicit in and supportive of genocide and other hideous crimes against human rights, but I still believe that their support is squishy and conflicted, far from the hardened determination of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and now Netanyahu, who would rather join Hitler in the bunker than give up their life's work.

  • Dave Reed: [09-15] Weekly Briefing: Zionism is now a dirty word.

  • Mona Shtaya: [09-16] Israel is joining the first global AI convention, here's why that's dangerous: "Over the last year Israel has weaponized AI in its genocide in Gaza, deploying AI-driven surveillance and automated targeting systems which has killed tens of thousands. Israel's participation in the first global AI treaty raises serious questions."

  • Jonah Valdez:

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [09-17] South Africa minister: countries have to 'boycott' Israel's war: "In a Washington appearance Tuesday, Ronald Lamola recalled how the world community ended apartheid in 1990."

Election notes:

  • Jonathan Chait: -[09-21] The case for 2024 indecision is feeble: "Trump-wary conservatives have run out of rational reasons to be undecided." His examples of still-vacillating conservatives include Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens.

  • Andrew Prokop: [09-17] What happened to Nate Silver: I'm not sure he was ever all that "beloved by progressives." In his 538 days, his focus was on getting it right, which meant anticipating contests Republicans would win, and calling them emphatically enough to claim the win. He started out as a useful corrective to a lot of polling bullshit, but after he blew the 2016 election, he overcompensated and turned into just another annoying pundit.

Trump:

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Rick Perlstein: [08-26] Say it to my face: "How Democrats learned to tell the plain truth and like it." Perlstein's columns have been terrific ever since he started writing for American Prospect, but somehow I missed this one, which came out of the DNC without being explicit about it (well, until the end). He gives examples from Clinton, Gore, Kerry ("the worst of them all"), and Obama. I don't think Harris is totally past running from her own shadow, but she's much better at at defending what's right, and attacking what's wrong.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists, the economy, and work:

  • John Cassidy: [09-18] How inflation fooled almost everybody: "With the Fed poised to cut rates for the first time in years, what have we learned about the economic disruptions of the pandemic era?"

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Ryan Cooper: [08-05] The case for pragmatic socialism: "The times are right for a socialist agenda that America can accept. We even have examples of it in practice." I held this piece back for later perusal, but I rather doubt I'm ever going to finish reading it, much less argue with it. In my philosophy days, I was fairly simpatico both with Marxism and with Pragmatism, and never saw much of a problem there. (I certainly knew a lot more of Marxism, but I read a fair amount of Charles Peirce, and also of Kant and various neo-Kantians like Robert Paul Wolff -- although I gather he spent more time critiquing pragmatists than swimming with them.) At least the focus on praxis was shared, along with the suspicion of metaphysics. The thing is, I have very little interest in salvaging "socialism" as a slogan, even though I admire both the theory and the legacy, and I'm willing to do my bit in defense of both. I just think that at this point a fresh start might work better. There's something pragmatist in that, isn't there?

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-20] Roaming Charges: Cat scratch political fever: Starts with "Miss Sassy started the biggest political fire since Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lamp and burned down Chicago." So, with Trump and Vance. Then includes a picture captioned "When sleazy immigrants [Don Jr. and Eric Trump] sneak into your country and kill your cats."

Obituaries

Books

  • Wendy Brown: [09-09] The enduring influence of Marx's masterpiece: "No book has done more than Capital to explain the way the world works." Essay "adapted from the foreword to the first English translation of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 in 50 years." Somehow, I don't recall this "famous turn of phrase" that Brown cites: "Capital is dead labor that acts like a vampire: It comes to life when it drinks more living labor, and the more living labor it drinks, the more it comes to life." Brown continues:

    Capital's requirements of increased labor exploitation over time -- exploiting more workers and exploiting them more intensively -- and in space -- ever expanding markets for its commodities -- constitute the life and death drives of capitalism, drives that are as insatiable as they are unsustainable. They reduce the masses to impoverishment, concentrate wealth among the few, and pile up crises that spell the system's eventual collapse, overthrow, or, as we have later learned, reinventions through the social state, the debt state, neoliberalism, financialization, and the asset-enhancing and de-risking state. Since growth is essential for what Marx called the "realization of surplus-value" or profit, capitalist development becomes an almighty shredder of all life forms and practices, including its own recent ones. From small shops, family farms, and cities to gigantic industries, rain forests, and even states, everything capital makes or needs it will eventually also destroy. In Marx's summary, "Capitalist production thus advances . . . only by damaging the very founts of all wealth: the earth and the worker."

    I'm reminded here of how easy it is to explain all of the world's ills with one word: "capitalism." That's the lesson drawn by every person who ever fell under Marx's spell, but reading this now I'm most struck by the insatiability of the process, which dialectically impels us to limit and regulate growth. Even now, when we've seen much of the harm capitalism can do, and as we've clearly benefited from many efforts to limit its rapacity, that's still a tough sell to many otherwise well-meaning people (e.g., "progressives," who still hope to grow our way out of all earthly hardships).

    • James Miller: [09-19] Karl Marx, weirder than ever: "What good is one of the communist thinker's most important texts to 21st-century readers?"

  • Adam Gopnik: [2012-02-27] The big reveal: Old article, popped up in a link list, piqued my curiosity for reasons I may (or may not) get around to explaining. Basically, a review of Elaine Pagels: Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, first imagining the text as a blockbuster movie:

    The Bible, as every Sunday-school student learns, has a Hollywood ending. Not a happy ending, certainly, but one where all the dramatic plot points left open earlier, to the whispered uncertainty of the audience ("I don't get it -- when did he say he was coming back?"), are resolved in a rush, and a final, climactic confrontation between the stern-lipped action hero and the really bad guys takes place. That ending -- the Book of Revelation -- has every element that Michael Bay could want: dragons, seven-headed sea beasts, double-horned land beasts, huge C.G.I.-style battles involving hundreds of thousands of angels and demons, and even, in Jezebel the temptress, a part for Megan Fox. ("And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and' she repented not.")

    I have this mental image of a certain type of 19th century Midwest farmer-intellectual who thinks that all of the world's knowledge -- past, present, and future -- is locked in the pages of the Bible, waiting to be explored and conquered by obsessive scholars like themselves. I even have a specific name in mind: Abraham Lincoln Hull, my great-grandfather, born on an arid west Kansas homestead in 1870, shortly after his father (plain Abraham Hull) moved out from Pennsylvania, after the Civil War. He was a sheep rancher, but I've heard him described as "the laziest human being ever." I suspect he was just lost in his thoughts, which fed into sideline jobs of teaching and preaching. I never knew him, but I did know, until I approached 15 and he died at 70, thereby confirming his own biblically-derived prophecy. He also farmed, taught school, dressed up for church, and pondered Revelations. One of the few times when he asked me a question was when he was trying to figure out whether the founding of Israel was proof that the second coming was imminent. I lacked the presence of mind to figure out whether he was a premillennial or postmillennial dispensationalist, but I was struck by the crackpot nature of the question, and I've recalled the moment every time I've seen or heard of Christian Zionists wax on the subject -- going back at least as far as David Lloyd George in approving the Balfour Declaration.

    As it turned out, my father had his own very different take on Revelation, but I never made the slightest effort to understand his, just noting that it was opposed to my grandfather's, and suspecting that, as with most of his theories of everything, it erred on the side of the whimsical. Eventually, I realized that I too was fated to have a theory of Revelation, even without having read more than the occasional isolated verse (which is the only way I ever approached the Bible -- the idea that one could just read it as literature, like The Gilgamesh or Moby Dick, only occurred to me when I saw it listed in the Great Books curriculum). My theory is that the book was tacked onto the end of the Bible as a reveal, one of those joke endings that exposes everything that had come before it as an elaborate hoax. That suggests more intention than I can imagine early Christian clerics as being capable of. Still, some of the most dedicated scholars have easily wandered into reductio ad absurdum, especially when the subject is religion.

    While my "theory" was never more than a joke, it was pretty clearly derived from insights I gleaned while reading a book about Judaism: Douglas Rushkoff: Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism. Rushkoff's thesis is that the internal logic of Judaism functions as an aid in helping you get through and past and over religion. The book isn't fresh enough in my mind to do justice to here (not that I have the time, anyway), but I will note that I had spent a lot of time on the history and evolution of puritanism, and found a similar dynamic at play there (e.g., the unitarians are direct descendants yet perhaps the most secular and tolerant sect in all of Christendom; but far more significant is the liberation puritan theology allowed to turn into "the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism").

  • Ed Park: Nuance and nuisance: on the Village Voice: Review of Tricia Romano's oral history, The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture.

  • Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins/Kate Yoon: [09-12] The age of public austerity and private luxury: "A conversation with Melinda Cooper about the recent history of neoliberalism and her new book Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. Cooper opens with:

    My overarching argument is continuous with the one I developed in Family Values [2017, subtitle: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism]. I question the idea that the neoliberal counterrevolution of the early 1980s was a backlash against Keynesianism as such. Instead, I see it as a backlash against the leftist social movements of the late 1960s and '70s, which were already engaged in a kind of immanent critique of actually existing Keynesianism. . . .

    My basic argument is that neoliberals of different stripes managed to create a regime of extreme public spending austerity for those primarily dependent on wage income, while at the same time ushering in a regime of radical spending and monetary extravagance for financial asset owners. We tend to see only the austerity side of the equation -- hence the illusion that this is all about the retreat of the state. But it's hard to explain the extreme wealth concentration that has occurred in recent decades if we don't also understand the multiple ways in which financial wealth is actively subsidized by the state.

    There's quite a bit here on how capital gains taxation (or lack thereof) subsidizes asset inflation -- my term, not a very popular one as it suggests assets aren't really worth as much as they seem, and also that inflation, like money, is "good for the rich but bad for the poor" (as Lewis Lapham liked to put it). Also more details on how the "Virginia school neoliberals" (like James Buchanan) "dovetailed" with the "supply siders" - despite different concepts, both sought to make the rich richer, at the expense of everyone else. Then back to politics:

    Having said this, I don't think economic liberalism as such ever works alone; it always works in alliance with some species of conservatism. This may be the communitarian/neoliberal alliance of a Third Way Democrat like Bill Clinton, or the neoconservative neoliberalism of George W. Bush.

    In today's Republican Party, we have something that looks like a neoliberal/paleoconservative alliance, and this brings complexities of its own. Paleoconservatism has clear connections to the white supremacist and theocratic far right; as a movement, it defines itself in opposition to neoconservatism, which it sees as too secular, too liberal, too internationalist, and too Jewish.

    However, the kinds of economic alliances made by paleoconservatives have been quite diverse. [Mentions Koch-favorite Murray Rothbard, drawing on Ludwig von Mises; "Ayn Rand devotee" Alan Greenspan; Pat Buchanan.] . . .

    I would say the contemporary Republican Party draws on all of these influences, Trump more haphazardly than others. In his first election campaign, Trump seemed to embody the kind of paleoconservative national protectionist policies espoused by Pat Buchanan or Steve Bannon -- and certainly on the issue of trade with China, he followed through on this.

    JD Vance sounds like he espouses an anti-neoliberal national protectionist position too, but then again he is one of several Republican right operators who are funded by the ultra-libertarian Peter Thiel. What unites these people is their affiliation to far-right paleoconservatism and their immersion in the world of private investment. This underwrites a deeply patrimonial, autarchic, and atavistic outlook that is sometimes dressed up in the garb of a more progressive anti-corporate agenda.

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Means testing is divisive, wasteful and punitive: [09-19] Israel has shown itself as a metastasizing threat to the whole world. Are you going to be comfortable getting on a plane with people carrying Israeli-made products?

  • Jeff Sharlet: [09-23] 49% of the class of '23 at Dartmouth, where I [t]each, went into finance or consulting. Even were [I] the most ardent capitalist -- I am really not that -- this would be a crushing statistic. So much energy, education, & intellect hoovered up by one sector. [I might have added: which produces nothing of value, being mostly parasitic, and often just predatory.]

  • Tony Karon: [09-24] Israel -- a Jewish supremacist state created by violently displacing the indigenous Palestinian majority -- was built on racist contempt for Arab life, limb and property. It is maintained today by the same people -- for Israel and its US backers, Arab lives don't matter. [image of headline: Israeli air strikes kill 492 people in Lebanon]

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 135 links, 8611 words (11055 total).

Current count: 144 links, 9060 words (11622 total)

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Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Music Week

September archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42976 [42939] rated (+37), 23 [28] unrated (-5).

Another week, another day delayed, as Speaking of Which ran into overtime. When I finally called time late last night, it had run to 290 links, 15664 words, which is the most words and 2nd most links since I twiddled with the software to automatically post counts at the end of the files. I'll probably fix some typos and add a few minor bits by the time I post this tonight, and they will be flagged as usual, but I don't expect to put much more work into it.

What I am doing new this time is to go ahead and open a draft file before I finish Music Week. The downside is that the new one will appear ahead of Music Week in the blog roll, but the headline will be marked (draft) to indicates that I'm not done working on it. I'll drop that marking when I decide the piece is to be posted, and mark later additions and major edits with my red change bars, as I've been doing.

I work in a local copy of the website, and update the public copy when I have something to post. But sometimes I have reason to update without having a new post. This new approach just saves me the trouble of hiding posts that are still in draft stage. I figure there's no harm in whatever glimpses readers may find. Regularly updated files, like the music lists, will also be more up-to-date, which means they will run ahead of Music Week. (This has always been the case, but it's less evident if I only update for blog posts.)

Big haul of A-list records this week. Several came from Robert Christgau's latest Consumer Guide, which had an unusually large number of albums I hadn't heard and took kindly to -- and perhaps most importantly, spurred me to finally check out the Kate Nash record, which I wound up liking more than anyone else. Note that the three songs he picked out are the the least string-driven, including both of the ones that Thaae didn't claim co-credit on. I loved the string stuff from the start, then only latched onto this tryptich after several plays, although they did help push it from A- to A.

I'll admit that it's possible that without the CG, I'd have left Smither and Wade at B+(***). Several albums I previously graded:

  • Louis Armstrong: Louis in London (Verve) [A-]
  • Louis Armstrong and His All-Stars: Ambassador Satch (Columbia/Legacy '09) [A-]
  • Zach Bryan: The Great American Bar Scene (Warner) [B+(**)]
  • Illuminati Hotties: Power (Hopeless) [B+(**)]
  • Romy: Mid Air (Young '23) [A-]

I haven't returned to any of them, but I did belatedly revisit Zach Bryan and bumped its grade from B+(***) to A-. Others I'll get to in due course. Amy Rigby was a previous Christgau B+, but I say it's at least as good as Smither and Wade. Much pre-CG speculation focused on Anderson, LL Cool J, MJ Lenderman, and Sabrina Carpenter -- the latter I already had at B+(***).

Two more records overcame my anti-EP prejudices, basically by blowing them to smithereens. Only A-listed jazz album this week was a delightful surprise from the most down-home of the Marsalis clan, although there are other fine records in the B+(***) niche. I've been maintaining the EOY Jazz file, so I'm perhaps overly conscious of far above historic norms this year's A-list is (73 albums, which is a typical year-end figure, one that would extrapolate to a totally unprecedented 100+ number. (By the way, I've been finding a lot of mistakes in my bookkeeping lately, including three albums from last week that I failed to add to the EOY Jazz file. If you see something amiss, please let me know.)

I have a rather uneasy relationship to Substack. I have a couple subscriptions I've been comped, and one more my wife pays for but where I'm still treated as a freeloader. I know of a half-dozen more ones by music writers that I regularly click on, but haven't subscribed to, and there are probably several times that many mostly political writers I'd enjoy reading when/if I could. But the first new one I immediately subscribed to is one launched by the terrific jazz critic Tim Niland. Here's his first batch of Music Capsules. By the way, his 822-page book of "selected blog posts 2003-2015" is still available.

The next few weeks for me are going to be, well, complicated. I doubt I'll be writing much, and may completely blow the usual schedules. Nothing dire. Just lots of distractions and other things to do.

New records reviewed this week:

Gino Amato: Latin Crsossroads (2024, Ovation): Pianist, Discogs gives him one credit (arranger), leads many musicians (including strings) and singers through a set of Latin-tinged standards from "Blackbird" to "Green Flower Street" via Monk and "Aranjuez." B+(*) [cd]

Laurie Anderson: Amelia (2024, Nonesuch): Spoken word artist, started with Big Science in 1982, the first of several remarkable albums, back here with the story of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart on her ill-fated attempt to fly around the world in 1937. A- [sp]

Eric Bibb: Live at the Scala Theatre Stockholm (2024, Repute): Easy-going blues singer-songwriter, originally from New York, first album 1972, lives in Stockholm, evidently for some time, so the choice of venue isn't so strange. B+(**) [sp]

Peter Case: Doctor Moan (2023, Sunset Blvd.): Singer-songwriter, from Buffalo, debut 1986, I thought his 1993 album Sings Like Hell was pretty good, but the dozen or so since, until this one showed up on a blues list. Plays piano, and sings, like hell, but not the same way. B [sp]

Dawn Clement/Steve Kovalcheck/Jon Hamar: Trio (2021 [2024], self-released): Piano-bass-guitar trio. I have Clement listed as a singer, but she doesn't here. B+(*) [cd]

Coco & Clair Clair: Girl (2024, Nice Girl World): Atlanta duo of Taylor Nave and Claire Toothill, third album since 2017, synthpop with some rap, most sung, short (9 tracks, 24:03) but nearly every song tantalizes, confirming the line "my girl and I just made a hit." A- [sp]

Buck Curran: One Evening and Other Folks Songs (2021-22 [2024], Obsolete/ESP-Disk): Singer-songwriter, plays guitar, several albums since 2016, first I've heard, based on title I filed this under folk (hype sheet confirms: "freak folk") but it doesn't really belong anywhere: a second vocalist, sometimes the lead, Adele Pappalardo, complicates the "singer" part, and keyboardist Jodi Pedrali spreads out the music, with ambient instrumentals in the mix. The alternate "Black Is the Color" has some prog appeal. B+(*) [cd]

Zaccai Curtis: Cubop Lives! (2024, Truth Revolution Recording Collective): Pianist, studied in Boston, based in New York, brother Luques Curtis is a notable bass player (present here, along with three percussionists). B+(**) [bc]

The Vinny Golia Quintet 2024: Almasty (2024, Nine Winds): Saxophonist, all weight plus many clarinets, very prolific since his debut album 1977 -- most on his own poorly promoted label, so my own exposure has been limited. Free jazz quintet here with Kris Tiner (trumpet/flugelhorn), Catherine Pineda (piano), Miller Wrenn (bass), and Clint Dodson (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Hot Club of San Francisco: Original Gadjo (2024, Hot Club): Gypsy jazz group, or a fair facsimile of one, inspired by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli's Hot Club de Paris, on their 15th album since 1993. B+(**) [cd]

Ill Considered: Infrared (2024, New Soil): British jazz group, active since 2017, improvises freely over deep world grooves. This seems a big darker than usual, though not without some moments. B+(**) [sp]

Ive: Ive Switch (2024, Starship Entertainment, EP): Korean girl group, six women, two listed as rappers, first single 2021, has a 2023 album, second EP (if I'm parsing this correctly), six songs, 18:13. They all sound like hits. A- [sp]

Julie: My Anti-Aircraft Friend (2024, Atlantic): Shoegaze band from Los Angeles, first album after an EP and several singles. Fills a niche. B+(*) [sp]

MJ Lenderman: Manning Fireworks (2024, Anti-): Guitarist, singer-songwriter from Asheville, North Carolina, is the great-grandson of saxophonist Charlie Ventura, has a couple solo albums and a band gig in Wednesday, which had a much-admired album in 2023. This one's also gotten a lot of hype. Seems lean at first, but fleshes out midway, mostly because the guitar gets denser, until eventually it's all that remains. (PS: When I added this to my EOY file, I found it on the line next to Adrianne Lenker's even more hyped Bright Future. Both are "good" albums hold little that I find interesting and/or pleasurable.) B+(***) [sp]

LL Cool J: The FORCE (2024, Def Jam): Rapper James Smith, first album (1985) went platinum, second album doubled that, third (Mama Said Knock You Out) probably his peak, got into acting early, landing a long-running role in NCIS in 2009, as the albums thinned out: just one in 2013, now this one. Title an acronym for "Frequencies of Real Creative Energy." Produced by Q-Tip, who really keeps it moving. A- [sp]

Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Crescent City Jewels (2023-24 [2024], Troubadour Jass): The famous family's trombonist stays closest to home, especially in spirit, with a big band (and then some). "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" (Kermit Ruffins vocal) never needed this kind of firepower, but it's wonderful to behold. Only "Lil Liza Jane" returns to that vein, but the more generic standards are often delightful -- notably what may be the best "'Round Midnight" (Tonya Boyd-Cannon vocal) I've heard. A- [cd]

Chad McCullough: In These Hills, Beyond (2023 [2024], Calligram): Trumpet player, started in Seattle, recording for Origin from 2008, until he moved to Chicago, started a new label, and seems to have fallen in with a new group of musicians who are pushing him much further out on the postbop spectrum: Bram Weijters (piano/keyboard), Dave Miller (guitar), John Christensen (bass), Kobie Watkins (drums). B+(***) [cd]

Kate Nash: 9 Sad Symphonies (2024, Kill Rock Stars): British pop singer-songwriter, fifth album since 2007, all great, but I was slow getting to this, partly because I was warned off, and partly because it's been a while. Turns out there are ten songs (not 9), averaging a very unsymphonic 3:51 (total 38:30). I don't process sung words fast enough to rule on their sadness, but there's nothing mopey here: her phrasing is sharp and crisp, and most of the music is very sprightly. True that it's dominated by strings with pizzicato fillips, but only one violinist is credited. Nearly everything else comes from producer Frederik Thaae, whose credit reads: "keyboards, orchestra direction, percussion, programming (all tracks); background vocals (track 4), guitar (5, 10)." The effect is more Pet Shop Boys than Beethoven or Wagner. The delirious swirl of synth strings parts for the two songs that Thaae didn't co-write, but they too are remarkable. I don't keep a singles list, but if I did, "Millions of Heartbeats" would be near the top. Also "Vampyre" and "My Bile," and possibly "Ray" and "Misery." And maybe more. A [sp]

Amy Rigby: Hang in There With Me (2024, Tapete): Singer-songwriter, started in the 1990s in a group called the Shams, went solo, released a series of brilliant albums, including duos with pub rock veteran Wreckless Eric (who produced here), although they've been spread out since 2005's Little Fugitive. I'm glad to have this one. A- [sp]

Jeff Rupert: It Gets Better (2021 [2024], Rupe Media): Tenor saxophonist, teaches at University of Central Florida, recorded with Sam Rivers in the 1990s, has an album from 2009, several more since, including a joust with George Garzone. He sounds pretty mainstream here, but what else would you do with a dream rhythm section of Kenny Barron (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums)? B+(***) [cd]

Otis Sandsjö: Y-Otis Tre (2021-23 [2024], We Jazz): Swedish saxophonist (mostly tenor, but also baritone, clarinet, flute, keyboards, drums), based in Berlin, two previous Y-Otis albums since 2018, here with Petter Eldh (bass, electronics) and Dan Nicholls (drums, keyboards). B [sp]

Claudio Scolari Project: Intermission (2023 [2024], Principal): Italian drummer, debut 2004, also plays (or programs) synth here, leading a quartet with trumpet (Simone Scolari), electric bass (Michele Cavalca), and a second drummer (Daniele Cavalca, also into synths and keyboards). B+(***) [cd]

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band: Dirt on My Diamonds: Volume 1 (2023, Provogue): Blues-rock guitarist-singer, debut album 1995, this is his 11th. B [sp]

Nala Sinephro: Endlessness (2024, Warp): Born in Belgium, father a saxophonist from Martinique/Guadeloupe, plays pedal harp, modular synthesizer, keyboards, and piano, second album seems viewed as jazz, whereas I filed her first one under electronica, the shift reflecting new prominence of saxophone (mostly Nubya Garcia, also James Mollison). B+(***) [sp]

Chris Smither: All About the Bones (2024, Signature Sounds): Folk singer-songwriter, released two albums 1970-71, one in 1984, then every couple years from 1991 on. I've heard most of them, and enjoyed many, but never got excited about him. Not about this one either, but it's going down so easy and pleasantly that I'm pretty satisfied. A- [sp]

Superposition: II (2024, We Jazz): Finnish jazz group, second album, names: Linda Fredriksson (alto/bari sax), Adele Sauros (soprano/tenor sax), Mikael Saastamoinen (bass), Olavi Louhivuori (drums), all with separate song credits. B+(**) [sp]

Verraco: Breathe . . . Godspeed (2024, Timedance, EP): Colombian DJ/producer, has one album (2020) and a half-dozen EPs, this one 4 tracks, 21:14. Nice one. B+(***) [sp]

Morgan Wade: Obsessed (2024, Ladylike/RCA Nashville): Country singer-songwriter, fourth album since 2018, last couple albums have been most impressive. This one sounds fine, but the preponderance of slow ones lulled me into apathy -- until I realized how many different songs caught my attention on one spin or another. A- [sp]

Gillian Welch/David Rawlings: Woodland (2024, Acony): Folk singer-songwriters, Welch grew up in a show biz family in New York before parting for Nashville in 1992, with a striking debut album in 1996. Rawlings played guitar on that album, and their partnership grew from there, with releasing albums under his name from 2009, and under both names in 2020. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Alan Tomlinson Trio: Loft 1993 (1993 [2024], Scatter Archive): British trombonist (1947-2023), had an album in 1981, mostly played with Barry Guy (LJCO) and Peter Brötzmann, trio here with Dave Tucker (guitar) and Roger Turner (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Unholy Modal Rounders: Unholier Than Thou 7/7/77 (1977 [2024], Don Giovanni, 2CD): Village folkies Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber started recording old folk songs as Holy Modal Rounders in 1964, releasing two albums on Fantasy that are now beloved classics. Weber played guitar and straight man, while Stampfel's antic vocals were even scratcher than his fiddle, and they just got weirder, even altering their name in 1976 when they joined with Michael Hurley and Jeffrey Fredericks for one of the greatest albums ever, Have Moicy!. This live date picks up some songs from there, plus a nice mix of older tunes, some trad, plus covers given their unique spin -- "Goldfinger" I've heard before, but "I Must Be Dreaming" (the Coasters or Robins, not Neil Sedaka) is even better. A [sp]

Old music:

Ahmad Jamal: Ahmad's Blues (1958 [1994], Chess): Pianist (1930-2023), born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, changed his name on his conversion to Islam in 1950, recordings start with Okeh in 1951, his January 1958 trio At the Pershing: But Not for Me was widely regarded as a breakthrough. Same trio here -- Israel Crosby (bass) and Vernell Fournier (drums) -- at the Spotlite Club in DC, in September. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Benjamin Boone: Confluence: The Ireland Sessions (Origin) [09-20]
  • Delia Fischer: Beyond Bossa (Origin) [09-20]
  • Rich Halley 4: Dusk and Dawn (Pine Eagle) [10-25]

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Monday, September 16, 2024

Speaking of Which

Opened this file on September 11, 1:27 PM, with the big debate looming that evening. As I'm writing this Sunday evening, that start seems like ages ago. Little chance I'll make my rounds before nodding off tonight. I could see posting or of not, where the main reason for posting is to move earlier into doing endlessly delayed non-blog work.

Indeed, late Sunday night I decided to pack it in without posting. I don't expect I'll need to add much on Monday. And in general, I won't be circling back to publications I checked on Sunday, or reporting news that only broke on Monday.

Finally posted this late Monday night. I ran into a lot of pieces on Monday that added a lot of extra writing, in many cases including regrets that I didn't have time to write even more. Even with the extra day, I didn't make all the usual rounds. I also found myself needing to search for further articles on specific topics, which may wind up being a better way to go about doing this. I also hit a bunch of paywalls. That's a horrible way to run a democracy, but that's a rant for another day.

For what it's worth, this week, on initial post, has the most words (15635) and the third most links (288, behind 317 and 290) of any week since I embedded the counting software.

I was struck by the following passage from Annie Proulx's Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, where talking about the bogs in Germany she brings up some old Roman history. The significance here is about how arrogant empires seed their own destruction (p. 120):

Rome's first emperor, Caesar Augustus, was seventy-two years old and near the end of his rule when the legions suffered their catastrophic defeat on the edge of the Great Bog. Germania's population was rural, made up of farmer-warriors and their families living in small settlements at the time of the battle. There were no real towns, and private ownership of land had been unknown among the eastern barbarians fifty years earlier when Caesar conquered Gaul. In general, where colonial- and imperial-minded aggressors make their moves into new territories and encounter indigenous people, often very numerous and "complex, multi-lingual, culturally diverse," as the two groups gradually mix and confront each other, tribal identities begin to take shape and individual "tribal leaders" are named. For the aggressor, this bundling is the opening process of controlling the indigenous people who, up to that time, may not have seen themselves as distinct tribes. Suddenly, they are corralled by identity to a specific area.

The Roman system of conquest was to grant conquered people Roman citizenship and involve them in Roman customs and culture. What Rome got from its aggressive takeovers encircling the Mediterranean Sea was an increase of manpower to serve in the army, slaves and money from taxation of its new colonies.

The Roman legions were augmented by auxiliaries of men from conquered lands. Yet many of the vanquished hated the Romans, their martial ways, their enslavements, their self-proclaimed superiority, their heavy taxes and their strutting presence as overseers and governors in seized territories. At the same time the conquered population wanted to be joined to the powerful, to visit glittering Rome whence all roads led.

The next couple pages go into specifics about the battle, where over 13,000 Roman troops were slaughtered at a loss of 500 Germans. I had long been under the impression that the Roman Empire expanded steadily up to its maximum under Hadrian (117-138 CE; Wikipedia has maps from 117 and 125), but I've since learned that history is messier. I first heard about the German bog debacle after the Bush invasion of Iraq, when I noted:

Of course, this will take a while to play out, but the logic of self-destruction is clear. A while back Martin van Creveld compared the Bush invasion of Iraq to the disastrous Roman invasion of Germany in 9 BCE when Augustus marched his legions into a swamp, losing them all.

By the time I wrote that, I had already noted a comparable Roman military disaster, when in 53 BCE Crassus led "across the Euphrates" into Iraq, where the desert proved as debilitating as the German bog -- although in both cases the real culprit was the Roman ego. Back then I was thinking more about the hubris of the invaders, but one could just well focus on the inevitability and resilience of resistance.

A short while later, I read this, from Timothy Egan, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis (2011, pp. 16-17):

What Curtis knew of Indians was informed, in large part, by depictions of dead natives he had seen in a book as a child. More than a thousand Eastern Sioux had been rounded up following an 1862 raid on settlers in Minnesota. The carnage was widespread in villages and farms in the southwest part of the state; by one estimate, eight hundred whites were killed in what became known as the Sioux Uprising. The Sioux had been roused to violence by repeated violations of their treaty, and by the mendacity of corrupt government agents who refused to make the required payments from the pact. In defeat, after the uprising, the Indians were sentenced to death. At the same time, many in Congress demanded that all Indians be wiped from the map, echoing the view of their constituents after the Sioux had caused so many casualties. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of most of the insurgents. But the death penalty remained for more than three dozen of them. On December 16, 1862, they were all hanged, the largest mass execution in American history. Curtis had studied an engraving of the lifeless Sioux in Mankato, Minnesota. Necks snapped, faces cold -- it haunted him. "All through life I have carried a vivid picture of that great scaffold with thirty-nine Indians hanging at the end of a rope," he wrote.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Ruwaida Kamal Amer/Mahmoud Mushtaha: [09-12] 'People torn to pieces' in Israeli airstrike on Gaza displacement camp: "Israeli bombs set tents ablaze and left deep craters in the earth as the army attacked Al-Mawasi, a designated 'safe zone,' for the fifth time."

  • Michael Arria:

  • James Bamford: [09-13] Israel's crackdown on the West Bank has already killed an American citizen: Aysenur Ezgi.

  • Rachel Chason/Jennifer Hassan/Alon Rom/Niha Masih/Kareen Fahim: [09-15] Houthis fire missile from Yemen into central Israel, warn of more strikes: "Israeli forces said the missile Sunday did not cause any direct injuries, but Netanyahu threatens, 'we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.'"

  • Ellen Ioanes: [09-11] How Israel keeps evading responsibility for killing Americans.

  • Fred Kaplan: [09-11] The key reason why we're not close to a cease-fire: That's an easy one -- "Netanyahu refuses" -- but one should note that Biden doesn't dare make his refusal the least bit awkward, even though that simply reinforces the ideas that he is helpless as a leader and/or he actually endorses as well as facilitates genocide. Previous American presidents have generally been able to prevail on Israeli leaders to make some gestures toward accommodating American needs, even if they really didn't want to (withdrawing from Sinai in 1957) and/or doublecrossed the Americans later (basically, every time since). Also, what the hell is this?

    Both sides' positions are reasonable, given their interests. Hamas fears that without a permanent cease-fire and total withdrawal, Israel will inflict utter devastation on all of its positions (and suspected positions) after the last hostage is released. And Israel fears that Hamas will attempt another Oct. 7 if the group isn't first destroyed as a political and military power.

    I mean, the Hamas position sounds reasonable, because that's exactly what Israel is doing, and without a permanent ceasefire has vowed to continue doing until the last Hamas fighter is dead, even if they have to kill every other Palestinian to get to him. But Israel has no grounds for any such "reasonable fear." Another "Oct. 7," if indeed any such thing is possible, will only happen if Israel recreates the same (or worse) conditions. There are many ways to prevent further eruptions from Hamas. Killing every Palestinian is the worst possible option.

  • Joshua Keating: [09-13] Can the world stop a massive oil spill in the middle of a war zone? "If the race to stop a spill in the Red Sea fails, it would be one of the worst in history."

  • Branko Marcetic: [09-13] The US government is a partner to Israel killing US citizens.

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-12] Israel's lie about a US activist's murder has exposed the Biden-Harris double standard on Palestine: "Israel's lie over the murder of U.S. activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has been exposed, and in the process, so has Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's double standard on the worth of Palestinian lives."

  • Josephine Riesman/SI Rosenbaum: [09-10] Kamala is sending a subtle message on Israel. Is anyone listening? What she said in the debate was almost literally what she said in her DNC acceptance speech. "Subtle" is one word for it, if you assume that she's being completely honest, and has every intention of filling out every little detail. Or, less generously, you could say she's being cynical and deceptive. As I pointed out a while back, her "subtle" message would be more effective if she reversed the order of terms, and first bemoaned the massive destruction and loss of life before touting her deep commitment to a secure Israel. At this point, when most people hear "Israel's right to defend itself" they automatically translate it to a license to commit mass murder, because that is exactly what Israel has done every time they've uttered those magic words.

    The authors make their case at great length. I'm not completely dismissive, but I'm far from convinced. I do have some feeling for the pressure she is under, and of the stakes should she fail. I'm personally willing to let this play out through November, after which she will either have much more leverage, or will be totally irrelevant. Partly for that reason, I've moved this discussion away from the sections on Debate and Harris. But another part of that reason is that I feel her critics for failing to come out more clearly in favor of ceasefire and conflict resolution have every cause to speak their piece. And even to vote against her if they feel the need, although I think that would be a mistake, especially as an attempt to move your fellow Americans to be more critical and independent of Israel.

    Here's part of the piece:

    If you're trying to determine Harris' position on Israel from the mainstream news media coverage of it, you're likely confused.

    Headlines point in all directions, from "Harris' Support for Israel 'Ironclad' After Attack on Golan Heights" to "Harris Team 'Expressed Openness to a New Direction' on Israel Policy." One article claims there are "Democrats Working Inside the Party to Persuade Kamala Harris to Stop Weapons for Israel," while another dishes: "Harris Steps Out on Israel." But many explainers wind up throwing their hands in the air, like the Forward did: "Kamala Harris Wants to Support Israel, and Palestinians. It Will Be Even Harder Than It Seems." Indeed.

    But taken together, Harris' statements and movements around Israeli policy -- throughout her career but especially in recent months, after the candidacy was bestowed on her -- do add up to something.

  • Ali Rizk: [09-12] Is Gaza war feeding ISIS resurgence in Middle East? "As resources are drawn to Israel-Lebanon region, US troops are fighting the terror group more than ever."

  • Norman Solomon: [09-11] Undebatable: what Harris and Trump could not say about Israel and Gaza: Starts with "Kamala Harris won the debate. People being bombed in Gaza did not." Ends with: "Silence is a blanket that smothers genuine democratic discourse and the outcries of moral voices. Making those voices inaudible is a key goal for the functioning of the warfare state."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-13] Murder in Beita: the IDF's killing of Aysenur Eygi.

  • Jonah Valdez: Most Americans want to stop arming Israel. Politicians don't care.

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Gideon Lewis-Kraus: [09-08] The angst and sorrow of Jewish Currents: "A little magazine wants to criticize Israel while holding on to Jewishness."

  • Ben Lorber: [09-05] The right is increasingly exploiting the horror of genocide: "Right-wing operatives are channeling the genocide in Gaza into mainstream antisemitism." A report from the fifth annual National Conservatism (NatCon) conference ("the cutting edge of the Trumpian Right"). I'm not making a lot of sense out of this. Traditional right-wing antisemites, including some NatCon grandees, have more often been staunch supporters of Israel: Zionism both flatters their prejudices and offers them hope for their own societies becoming Judenrein. However, we're not dealing with especially clear-headed thinkers here, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise when they start confusing their complaints. Anyone who sees the atrocities Israel is committing and conflates them with all Jews (or even all Israeli Jews) is a fool -- and note that the most flagrant offenders here are the propagandists who try to equate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It's inevitable that people who don't know any better will take this hint and run with it, which seems to be Lorber's subject here.

    I hadn't run across Lorber before, but he has a book (co-written by Shane Burley), Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, and some older articles:

  • Craig Mokhiber: [09-10] No, Israel does not have a right to defend itself in Gaza. But the Palestinians do. "Basic morality and simple logic dictate that the right of self-defense belongs to the Palestinian people, not to their oppressor. And international law agrees." True that international law does recognize some right to self-defense, but it is not a moral principle, and I am suspicious of whatever logic you might think supports it. Although law often reinforces what we take to be moral, it has to deal not just with what people should do, but with real people in complex situations who do things that do not always conform with morality. One thing that people often do, whether by nature or culture, regardless of law, is attempt to defend themselves. Self-defense is used to describe a wide range of acts, from shielding your face from blows to throwing punches of your own. Modern weapons magnify and accelerate both threats and damage. Some are so powerful that they can harm bystanders, who never were threats, so never needed to be defended against. What law has to do is to decide whether self-defense is understandable and/or excusable, or should be condemned and possibly punished. To say self-defense is a right is to assert that acts which otherwise would be considered criminal should be not just tolerated but taken as exemplary, as precedents to encourage others to even greater violence.

    But in this specific case, to the extent that one allows such a right, why shouldn't Palestinians enjoy it same as Israelis? If you only allow Israel a right to self-defense, and allow it so broadly, you're really just saying that you think Palestinians are sub-human, that they don't count or matter, and might as well be slaughtered indiscriminately. As the last year has proven, that's no hypothetical. That's what Israel is doing, and anyone who thinks they have a "right" to do so is simply aiding and abetting genocide.

  • James Ray: [09-13] Electoral politics are not the way forward for the Palestine movement: "The question of how Palestine activists should engage in electoral politics has split the movement, but the 2024 election season should clarify why they are not an effective strategy for building power." I'll endorse the title, but the article itself leans way to heavy on "the Palestine movement," which I have some sympathy for but little faith or interest in. Electoral politics are set for the year, with nothing but the voting left to do. While there are important issues and major differences in candidates yet to be decided, lots of issues aren't on the ballot, including America's support for Israel's genocide against Palestinians -- which is how I prefer framing the issue, as it seems much broader (of interest to many more people) and deeper (of greater importance) than the question of where and when one can fly Palestinian flags.

    The movement, of course, can and must continue, using any tactics that seem likely to move public and/or elite opinion -- anything that would put pressure on those in power to act to halt these atrocities and start the long process of healing. I can argue that those of you who are intensely concerned with this issue should spend your vote on Harris and the rest of the Democrats -- it's not much, but it's yours, and if you don't vote, even out of righteous spite, you're wasting your right to participate in even our bare minimum of democracy. Also, by spoiling your vote, you're not just being negligent but showing contempt for people who need your help on issues that really matter to them -- the same people you need most urgently for your issue.

    I could also argue that Harris is more cognizant of and amenable to further pressure on this issue. I'm not going to plead this case here: it's just a feeling, not supported by clear statements on her part, or by a track record which shows any great will on her part to withstand the enormous pressures the entire political systems puts on politicians like her to pledge allegiance to Israel. My own inclination is to not just vote for her but to give her a free pass through November, as I don't see any constructive value in further embarrassing her on this issue (or in encouraging her to embarrass herself by reiterating her blanket support for Israel). But I'm not saying that anyone active on this issue should stop talking about it, and I'm not going to be holding any grudges against others who can't help but include her among the many American political figures who are complicit in this genocide. For pretty much the same reason, I may think that people who self-identify as "pro-Palestinian" have a dubious grasp of political tactics, I bear them no ill-feeling, because they at least are committed to opposing Israel's hideous and shameful reign of terror. Until the atrocities are stopped, whatever thoughts they may have about Palestinian statehood are mere curiosities.

    By the way, don't give Trump the same free pass until the election. Feel free to point out how his presidency contributed to the conditions that elected Israel's ultra-right government, that cornered and prodded Hamas into their desperate Oct. 7 revolt, and that revealed so many Republicans as genocide's biggest cheerleaders. This is not just a matter of setting the historical record straight, but it directly counters the ridiculous notion that Trump is some kind of antiwar candidate.

  • Ben Reiff: [09-11] Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence? "Israel's army suspects fabrications published in the Jewish Chronicle were part of a pro-Bibi influence campaign, while the article's author is not as he claims."

  • Stephen Semler: [09-12] Is Israel intentionally attacking aid workers? "We've compiled 14 incidents where humanitarians were attacked despite giving the IDF their coordinates and being clearly identified as civilians."

The Harris-Trump debate:

  • Vox [Andrew Prokop/Nicole Narea/Christian Paz]: [09-10] 3 winners and 2 losers from the Harris-Trump debate: The winners were: Kamala Harris, ABC News's debate moderators (David Muri and Linsey Davis), and Swifties for Kamala; the losers: Donald Trump, and Immigration. Once again, the Vox writer were out in force:

    • Ellen Ioanes: [09-10] Kamala Harris's and Donald Trump's wildly different tax plans, explained.

    • Joshua Keating: [09-11] Biden and Harris say America's no longer at war. Is that true? "Harris says US troops aren't fighting in any 'war zones.' What about Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea?" Within the context of the debate, Harris had a point, which was useful in countering Trump's lie:

      Beyond the legal hair-splitting, Harris made the comment in the context of a defense of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and it is true that under Biden, the US military posture overseas has significantly shrunk from what it was under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

      (Trump has falsely claimed in the past that his presidency was the first in 72 years that "didn't have any wars," despite the fact that he oversaw four years of combat in Afghanistan as well as major military escalations in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. At least 65 US troops died in hostile action under Trump's presidency.)

      That number under Trump was significantly less than under Obama, which in turn was less than under Bush. A comparable Biden number is probably less than Trump's, but not much less.

    • Eric Levitz: [09-11] Donald Trump lost the debate because he's too online: "The GOP nominee spoke to swing voters as though they were his Truth Social followers." Also note the section head: "For swing voters, many of Trump's ravings sounded like a summary of the sixth season of a show they'd never watched."

  • Intelligencer:

  • Emma Brockes: [09-11] Harris clearly beat Trump -- not that you'd know it from the right-wing media. Shame on them. "From the likes of Fox News has come a masterclass in post-debate pretzel logic. Surely the excuses must run out soon."

  • Frank Bruni: [09-12] Kamala Harris is serious. Donald Trump is not.

  • Margaret Carlson: [09-11] Harris shows how to dismantle a would-be dictator: "Humor, ridicule, gut punches, and that look of puzzlement and contempt were just some of the tools the vice president used to take down Trump."

  • Nandika Chatterjee: [09-12] Fox News host triggers Donald Trump by saying "he decisively lost" the debate with Kamala Harris: "Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto said the debate wasn't close."

  • John Ganz: [09-11] Cats and dogs: "I can't believe I watched the whole thing!"

    Trump still has considerable powers of self-expression, which are often underrated by liberals, but they should not be overrated either. He has a very limited vocabulary and it constrains the extent to which he can articulate responses on any issue. So, he falls back into hyperbole -- everything is the worst, the best, the greatest. This can be effective, but often last night it sounded repetitive and, yes, kind of dull. If the American simply people tire of his antics, it will really be over for him. Harris's message of "let's turn the page" is a good one because it presents Trump as tiresome as much as fearsome.

  • Richard A Friedman: [09-12] Trump's repetitive speech is a bad sign: "If the debate was a cognitive test, the former president failed."

  • Susan B Glasser: [09-11] Donald Trump had a really, really bad debate.

  • Shane Goldmacher/Katie Rogers: [09-11] Harris dominates as Trump gets defensive: 6 takeaways from the debate: "Layout out bait that Donald Trump eagerly snatched, the vice president owned much of the night, keeping him on the back foot and avoiding sustained attention on her own vulnerabilities." As Rick Perlstein tweeted: "In a strictly intellectual sense, I'm very excited to see how the New York Times solves the linguistic puzzle of making that sound like a tie. It will require a Fermat's Last Theorum-level of ingenuity." Perlstein later linked to a NYT app article headline ("Fierce Exchanges Over Country's Future Dominate Debate") that satisfied his expectations, but when I searched for that headline, I found this article instead. Perhaps sensing that such precise (albeit vague) balance wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, they conceded the debate to Harris, while playing up whatever they could for Trump. The six takeaways:

    1. Harris set traps. Trump leaped into them.
    2. Trump played defense on his record.
    3. Harris seized the advantage on abortion.
    4. Trump didn't hide his disdain of Harris.
    5. Harris missed some opportunities.
    6. Trump missed Biden.

  • Nardos Haile: [09-10] "I went to the Wharton School of Finance": Harris getting Trump flustered makes for great TV.

  • Thom Hartmann: [09-13] Inside Trump's 'peace candidate' debate scam. This is an important subject -- one I wish he did a better job of handling. Trump should have zero credibility as a "peace candidate," well below Biden/Harris, even though they've set the bar pretty low. They at least have a modicum of empathy for the costs of war. As such, they can see some reason to stay clear of war, or to clean up the wars they've been given (e.g., Afghanistan). What Hartmann is pretty good at is pointing out "our media failures":

    Thus, Trump and the entire GOP are now furiously trying to rewrite their party's history of using unnecessary wars to get re-elected. And, according to opinion polls, it's working because America's corporate media pretty much refuses to point out Republican perfidy in any regard.

    Consider these indictments of our media failures. Polls show:

    • 52% trust Trump more compared to 37% for Harris on inflation (even though America has the lowest inflation rate in the developed world because of Biden's policies)
    • 51% trust Trump vs. 43% for Harris on handling the economy (even though Biden's economy beats Trump's by every metric, even pre-Covid)
    • 54% trust Trump more on border security compared to 36% for Harris (even though border crossings are at historically low levels now, lower than any time during Trump's non-Covid presidency)
    • 53% trust Trump vs. 40% for Harris on immigration (even though Trump wants to build concentration camps, go door-to-door arresting Hispanics, and again tear children from their mother's arms)
    • 51% trust Trump vs. 41% for Harris to stand up to China, even though Trump got millions in bribes from them for his daughter
    • And on crime and public safety, 48% trust Trump versus 42% for Harris, even though crime levels today are lower than any time during Trump's presidency

    None of these numbers would be where they are if our news organizations had accurately reported the facts.

  • Jeet Heer: [09-11] With her rope-a-dope strategy, Kamala Harris baited Trump into scaring swing voters: "Last night's debate will help give Democrats an edge. But strengthening the base remains crucial."

  • Fred Kaplan: [09-11] Harris exposed how easy Trump is to manipulate. Dictators have known this for a long time. Easy to manipulate, for sure, but when it comes to manipulation, you need proximity, which only his staff really has, and they've generally been able to cancel out any idea foreign dictators may have planted. While Trump threatens to break the mold on US foreign policy, in his first term, he was hamstrung by orthodox blob operatives, leaving him with nothing but a few ridiculous photo ops. A second term could be better or worse, but given how consistent (and wrong-headed) US foreign policy has been across both partisan administrations, he'll probably just make the same mistakes over and over again. It's not like he actually knows any better.

  • Ezra Klein: [09-11] Harris had a theory of Trump, and it was right: "The vice president successfully baited Trump's angry, conspiratorial, free-associating side. But what wasn't said was just as telling."

  • Robert Kuttner: [09-11] Notes for next time: "Kamala Harris did well in the debate but missed some opportunities to remind voters of Trump's sheer craziness."

  • Dahlia Lithwick:

  • Amanda Marcotte: [09-11] "The same old, tired playbook": Harris baits an aging Trump into being his grumpiest, weirdest self: "Even with the muted microphones, there is no 'sane-washing' Trump during the debate." There's also an interview of Marcotte by Alex Henderson.

  • Melanie McFarland: [09-11] "She whupped him": Kamala Harris won the debate by turning a potential disaster into a laugh-in.

  • Mary McNamara: [09-12] How Kamala Harris de-normalized Trump is less than 2 hours.

  • Harold Meyerson: [09-11] Normal meets weird: "And normal wins by a knockout in Tuesday's Harris-Trump debate."

  • John Nichols: [09-11] Kamala Harris won the debate about the future of American democracy: "Harris exposed Donald Trump as a clear and present danger, framing a stark choice and inviting voters to 'turn the page.'"

  • Andrew O'Hehir: [09-12] Trump's self-destruction was epic -- but this is America, so it might not be enough.

  • Molly Olmstead:

  • Bernie Sanders: [09-12] Kamala Harris was great in the debate. Will that be enough to win?

  • Bill Scher: [09-11] Kamala Harris is good at this: "The vice president laid out her plans for the future while Donald Trump was caught in a tangle of grievances about the past."

  • Adam Serwer: [09-14] The real 'DEI' candidates: Kamala Harris's evisceration of Donald Trump at the debate revealed who in this race is actually unqualified for power."

  • Rebecca Solnit: [09-11] Kamala Harris, unlike Donald Trump, was well prepared for this debate -- and won: "Harris spoke in lucid paragraphs, but Trump spouted lurid, loopy stuff."

  • Margaret Sullivan: [09-11] ABC's debate moderators did what some said was impossible: factcheck Trump.

  • Charles Sykes: [09-11] Trump blames everybody but himself: Talk about infinitely recyclable headlines! "He can't face the truth about his performance at the debate."

  • Robert Tait: [09-11] Republicans dismayed by Trump's 'bad' and 'unprepared' debate performance: "GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate."

  • William Vaillancourt: [09-12] Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz says Trump's campaign is over after bad debate.

  • John Zogby: [09-14] The polling is in and Harris won the debate. But Democrats shouldn't get cocky.

  • Steve M: [09-11] How the right-wing mediasphere -- and Trump's fragile ego -- set him up for failure last night. This elaborates on a theme that I've been noticing for years, which is that Trump is merely a receptacle for right-wing propaganda. Right-wingers have cynically formulated their propaganda to trigger incoherent emotions in their listeners -- a technique often dubbed "dog-whistling." To carry the analogy a bit farther, Trump isn't a whistler; Trump's just one of the dogs. What makes him the MAGA leader is his money, his ego, his ability to capture the media's attention. But as a thinker, as a speaker, as an organizer, he's strictly derivative, a second-rate hack picking up and repeating whatever he's been told. M explains:

    Trump has always been cultural conservative -- a racist, a fan of "law and order," an admirer of strongmen and authoritarians -- but years of binge-watching Fox News have made his opinions and prejudices worse. Now he has a set of opinions -- on renewable energy vs. fossil fuels, on immigration, and so on -- that are made up of talking points from the right-wing informationsphere. When he says that windmill noise causes cancer, he's repeating an idea spread by pseudo-scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry.

    But that's how his mind works -- his ego is so fragile that he can't bear to be wrong, so he clings desperately to any assertion that reinforces his notion that he's right. Windmills kill birds! Solar energy is useless when it's cloudy! Of course, the right-wing infosphere is a machine designed to reassure all of its consumers that their prejudices and resentments are right. . . .

    But in recent years, as Fox News has begun losing its primacy on the right while the Internet has increasingly been the main source for what rank-and-file right-wingers believe, fringe ideas have become more mainstream: Barack Obama birtherism, the allegedly stolen election in 2020, QAnon's notion of a vast elitist pedophile ring that somehow excludes all Republicans.

    And now we have the cats.

    When even J.D. Vance was spreading scurrilous stories about Haitian immigrants eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, I was surprised -- not because right-wingers are spreading hateful and dangerous blood libels about immigrants (that happens all the time), but because Republicans weren't confining the spread of this preposterous and easily disproved story to the fringier parts of their infosphere. They were going mainstream with this.

    But of course they were. In 2024, it's hard to restrict a story like this to the fringe. Naturally, Elon Musk promoted it, as did many online influencers and Trumpist members of Congress.

    Trump hates immigrants, so of course he seized on this story and talked about in the debate. Trump's confirmation bias is tied to his delicate ego, which always needs to say, See? I was right. A few years ago, he might not have even noticed this story. But the tiers in the right-wing mediasphere have collapsed, so the confirming messages Trump is exposed to are stupider. And he believes them. . . .

    Trump simply can't take in information that challenges his beliefs. His ego can't handle it. The right-wing infosphere flatters Trump the way dictators flatter Trump: by telling him what he wants to hear. That's the person Kamala Harris showed us last night, and that's why we can't allow him to win the presidency again.

  • Taylor Swift endorses Harris: I wouldn't be surprised to find that her lawyers drafted the statement (released on Instagram) weeks ago, but its timing does two useful things: it shows due diligence, as she waited for a moment when it would appear she considered both options fair and square, and it provided a singuarly conspicuous verdict on the debate, thereby underscoring its importance.

Trump:

  • Sasha Abramsky: [09-13] Trump is as gullible as he is a threat to democracy: "A decade into his political career, Donald J Trump is entirely at the mercy of his own BS."

  • David Atkins: [09-12] Trump doesn't understand tariffs, but he knows enough to be menacing. Trump's fascination with tariffs seems to be based on the notion that he can impose them arbitrarily and with impunity, so they function as a massive ego stroke. On the other hand, his opponents are nearly as simple-minded and dogmatic as he is. As I've said before, tariffs only make sense as part of a strategy to build up domestic industries (i.e., if you are doing economic planning, which is something most American politicians have long denounced). It now occurs to me that there may be better ways to do that than tariffs.

    Facts cannot penetrate Trump's narrow, incurious, egotistical worldview. He believes that as the leader of the world's dominant economy, he can bully the rest of the world into submission. And like Hoover -- not coincidentally, the only other president to preside over a net loss of jobs in the United States -- he will make an easily avoidable mistake that costs everyone.

  • Peter Baker: [09-09] As debate looms, Trump is now the one facing questions about age and capacity.

  • Charles R Davis: [09-08] Trump, lying about migrants and crime, says mass deportations "will be a bloody story": "he claimed he would use police and soldiers to deport at least 12 million undocumented people."

  • John Cassidy: [09-09] Donald Trump's new "voodoo economics": "The former president's tax plan would cost the government trillions of dollars. Tariffs and Elon Musk will pay for everything, he says."

  • Chauncey DeVega: [09-12] The problem with pinning Donald Trump down: Americans' attention spans are too short: "The American people are not well. Sick societies produce sick leaders." Time to "elect a new people"? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just slam Trump with the truth day and night until everyone sees him as an embarrassment?

  • Kevin T Dugan: [09-11] Trump's bad debate cost him nearly $500 million. The metric here is the value of Trump's Truth Social stock.

  • Eugene R Fidell/Dennis Aftergut: [09-13] Trump's plan to undermine foreign policy: The authors argue that Trump promised to violate the Logan Act, a law which "makes it a felony for private citizens, including presidents-elect, to interfere in foreign policy." I doubt that anyone, least of all Trump himself, is going to take his statements that literally, but the sloppy thinking is typical. The innuendo, that he's just a Putin stooge, is more barbed, but its plausibility is also based on his sloppy thinking.

  • Adam Freelander: [09-09] Exactly how Trump could ban abortion: "Whether the US bans it everywhere could be up to the next president."

  • David A Graham:

  • Elie Honig: [09-13] Jack Smith's reckless gamble: "The special counsel seems ready to bet the entire January 6 case against Trump on an improbable outcome."

  • David R Lurie: [08-19] Trump's carny act isn't working anymore: "His Folgers Coffee Conference showed a candidate in decline." Compares his Aug. 15 "press conference," with tables of grocery items, props for his wild claims about inflation, with a similar branding event from his 2016 campaign, describing the latter:

    It was all pretty darn weird; but the press lapped it up and, for the remainder of the campaign, gave Trump all the airtime and attention he wanted for similar performances.

    The Trump Steaks Conference was to become the template for Trump's political strategy during the ensuing decade, a mélange of elaborate (and often patently false) self-promotion blended with equally false and correspondingly vicious attacks on whoever happens to be Trump's opponent du jour.

  • Jason Stanley: [09-13] Donald Trump is openly running on a Great Replacement Theory campaign. If you're not familiar with GRT (especially as used by the American right), here's an index of articles.

  • Margaret Sullivan: [09-07] The power of a single word about media malfeasance: "It's 'sanewashing' -- and it's what journalists keep doing for Trump." She credits various pieces by Parker Molloy, Michael Tomasky, Aaron Rupar, and Greg Sargent, quotes some, quotes a definition, and notes:

    Here, as an example, is a Politico news alert that summarizes a recent Trump speech: "Trump laid out a sweeping vision of lower taxes, higher tariffs and light-touch regulation in a speech to top Wall Streets execs today." As writer Thor Benson quipped on Twitter: "I hope the press is this nice to me if I ever do a speech where no one can tell if I just had a stroke or not."

    Trump has become more incoherent as he has aged, but you wouldn't know it from most of the press coverage, which treats his utterances as essentially logical policy statements -- a "sweeping vision," even.

    After the intense media focus on Joe Biden's age and mental acuity, you would think Trump's apparent decline would be a preoccupation. He is 78, after all, and often incoherent. But with rare exceptions, that hasn't happened. . . .

    But why does the media sanewash Trump? It's all a part of the false-equivalence I've been writing about here in which candidates are equalized as an ongoing gesture of performative fairness.

    And it's also, I believe, because of the restrained language of traditional objective journalism. That's often a good thing; it's part of being careful and cautious. But when it fails to present a truthful picture, that practice distorts reality.

    I was pointed here by a Paul Krugman reference. I figured it was worth noting separately, and for good measure, I searched for "sanewashing Trump" and found it's suddenly been adopted widely of late. Links follow -- I skipped "Trump has not been 'sane-washed'," because it's at Atlantic, and I didn't want to blow one of my few "free article" credits on something as transparently worthless. (Parker Molloy critiques the Paul Farhi piece below, so you can find the link there.)

    But let me make a couple preliminary points. The term has never been used pre-Trump, because no previous candidate has ever given us such copious evidence of dubious sanity. It's not that we've never seen neuroses or delusions before, but they've never seemed so disconnected from reality. Trump has three personal problems that are relevant here, and while none of these are unprecedented, his combination is pretty extreme. (1) He lies a lot, and not just about things we're used to other politicians lying about. (2) He has very little grasp of policy ideas, but even his conventional policy ideas -- the ones common to most Republicans, most of which he thoughtlessly picked up from Fox News -- are ill-considered and unworkable, so detached from reality even before he embroiders and imbues them with his personal twists. (3) He is old and mentally clumsy, as well as extremely vain and conceited, states that we perhaps too readily associate with dementia.

    While "sane-washing" is new and especially Trump-specific -- unless the term ever appeared in the Republican campaign to impugn "Biden's dementia" -- the media angle is much older, this a mere inflection on the more common term "white-washing," which occurs when reporters suppress, sanitize, and/or rationalize their reporting. This has been going on for ages, but few if any candidates have benefited more from an indulgent press than Trump, not least because few candidates have ever needed so much indulgence. Worse still, the process has been self-normalizing, so rather than gently nudging Trump back into normal discourse (as white-washed Trump), he figures he can push his boundaries even further, confident the media will excuse further excesses (or that he can denounce them as 'fake news").

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [09-09] Rustbelt poll: Majority say Trump more likely to avoid war: "Survey finds strong support for Gaza ceasefire; most believe today's foreign policy doesn't put America first." The poll was designed and run by Cato Institute.

  • Elizabeth Warren: [09-14] What Donald Trump isn't telling us: Starts off with Trump's "concepts of a plan" for replacing Obamacare:

    Plans translate values into action. They test the quality of the ideas and the seriousness of the people advancing them. Plans reveal for whom candidates will fight and how effective they are likely to be. And in a presidential race, if either party's nominee is asked about his or her plans for something as fundamental as health care, voters should get a straight answer.

    The problem is not that Mr. Trump can't think up a way to put his values into action. The problem is that when he and other Republican leaders produce plans with actual details, they horrify the American people.

    Mr. Trump's health care values have been on full display for years. In 2017, Republicans controlled Congress, and their first major legislative undertaking was a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Every time they drafted something, independent experts would point out that their plan would toss tens of millions of people off their health insurance, jack up premium costs and slash benefits for those with ongoing health problems. . . .

    But at the debate, Mr. Trump displayed a new strategy. He seems to realize that his health-care plans are deeply unpopular, so he simply doesn't talk about them. Thus, after nine years of railing against the A.C.A. and trying mightily to repeal it, he has moved to "concepts of a plan," without a single detail that anyone can pin him down on.

    The new strategy might have worked -- except Mr. Trump's right-wing buddies have already laid out the plans. No need for concepts. Project 2025 has 920 pages translating Republican values into detailed action plans, including on health care: Repeal the A.C.A. Cut Medicare benefits. End $35 insulin. Stop Medicare drug price negotiations. Cut health-care access for poor families. Restrict contraceptive care. Jeopardize access to I.V.F. Ban medication abortion.

    As Project 2025's favorability plummets, Mr. Trump is once again scrambling. "I have nothing to do with Project 2025," he claimed at the debate. "I'm not going to read it." But it was written by many members of Mr. Trump's former administration and over 250 of the policies in the plan match his past or current policy proposals.

  • Agence France-Presse: [09-14] Laura Loomer, far-right flame thrower who has Trump's ear.

    Meet Laura Loomer, the latest fringe figure to set up in the presidential candidate's inner circle, and who has managed to shock even Trump's most extreme allies as he seeks to reclaim the White House.

    Loomer, a 31-year-old social media influencer and provocateur, has managed to squeeze into Trump's entourage as he is struggling to win over the independents and moderates needed to prevail in November's election against Kamala Harris, a race that is coming down to the wire. . . .

    Asked Friday about her incendiary posts and conspiracy theories, Trump -- a voracious consumer of social media who has previously amplified Loomer's posts on his own account -- shrugged them off, telling reporters in California: "I don't know that much about it."

    Trump declined to criticize Loomer, instead hailing her as a "free spirit" supporter with "strong opinions."

    More on Loomer:

  • Madeline Halpert/Laurence Peter: [09-15] Trump rushed to safety and suspect held after man spotted with rifle: Evidently someone was seen with a gun on a golf course where Trump was playing. Secret Service shot at a man, who dropped the gun and fled, and was later apprehended. Many articles call this "a shooting" and/or "an assassination attempt," which is something to look into, but not established fact. Presumably we'll know more soon, but I don't recall ever learning much about the previous "assassination attempt." While it would be bizarre to fake events like this -- the previous one seemed to spike his polls -- it's hard to rule anything out with Trump, or to assume that normal rules apply. It's also hard to care, possibly because he seems so keen on assassinating other folks that you can't discount the karma, and possibly because when I think of similar cases the one I always land on first is George Lincoln Rockwell.

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Jedediah Britton-Purdy: [09-12] Harris can win on the economy, but she needs a stronger message. Dean Baker reacted to this piece -- "the gist of the piece is that most people are hurting now, but Harris can turn things around by adopting a more populist agenda" -- adding that "it would be great to see Harris push a more populist agenda," but mostly attributing the problem to misinformation ("the media have lied to the public"), but also by asserting that "most people are not hurting how, or at least not more than they did in the past." One problem is that the whole system is rigged to maintain a level of economic pain, so most people feel precarious even when conditions are within normal bounds. Also not clear to me what Britton-Purdy's "clear economic program" actually is. Certainly there are lots of opportunities, but making them clear and tangible to voters is much easier said than done.

  • Marin Cogan: [09-11] Wait, Kamala Harris owns a gun?

  • Jill Filipovic: The big thing Kamala Harris is doing differently than Hillary Clinton: "The Democratic Party is finally figuring out how to right-size its focus on identity politics."

  • Jacob S Hacker: [08-14] Kamala Harris had a great health care idea in 2019. She should embrace it.

  • Heather Digby Parton: [09-13] Kamala Harris' big tent strategy -- and its success -- has thrown Trump for a loop. I personally find the Cheney endorsements damning, but when she mentioned them, I thought she got the "even" inflection just right. I suppose what that shows is that she's the politician, and I'm not. I'm skeptical of how many disaffected Republicans she can win over, but as long as she can pick up some without turning on (or off) her natural base, that not only helps her chances of winning, it opens up the possibility of winning big -- and that would be a good thing, even if it muddies the message a bit.

    I could go farther here and argue that for most Republicans, a big Harris win, even one that gave her a comfortable margin in Congress, would be a blessing. Trump and his movement are a dead end, desperately clinging to demographics that are slipping away, that can only be shored up by disabling democracy, while their policy prejudices only make problems worse, and their reflexive resort to force behind propaganda only makes their victims and opponents more desperate.

    In the 1970s, Republicans argued -- wrongly, I think, but not without reason -- that America has swung too far to the left, so they set about "rebalancing" government. Since then, they never let up, pushing inequality to levels that never existed before: the "gilded age" of the 1880s and the "roaring '20s" were past peaks, both ending in massive depressions, which were corrected with shifts back to the left -- never far, as the rich fared handsomely in the Progressive and New Deal/Great Society eras. Pace the Trump paranoia, they have little to fear from Harris and the Democrats -- even from the farthest left reaches of the party, whose actual programs proposed are modestly reformist, and easily compromised by lobbying.

    Capitalism doesn't help anyone develop a sense of enough, but common sense does, and Republicans need some of that. Especially, they need a break from the Trumpists, who are paranoid and delusional, prepared to burn it all down for the sake of idiot theories, just to exercise their malice against much of the world. It's good to respect the new Republicans who, like recovering alcoholics, are willing to break. The the Cheneys still have a lot of recovering to go.

  • Charles P Pierce: [09-16] Kamala Harris understands that an overly serious campaign is a losing campaign: "Our history is not all crises weathered and problems solved. It is also brass bands, and torchlight parades, and barrels of hard cider at rural polling stations." Point noted, but then: "Sorry. This article is for subscribers only."

  • Zephyr Teachout: [09-09] Stop calling Kamala Harris' anti-price gouging proposal price controls: "Her plan to control inflation is not some leftist plot. It's rooted in mainstream American legal tradition -- and sorely needed."

  • Rebecca Traister: [09-09] The people for Kamala Harris: "How a women-led movement,born in the devastation of 2016, put Democrats on the brink of making history." Magazine cover story article, takes the time needed to sketch out the big picture. This article was paired with:

    • Olivia Nuzzi: [09-09] The afterlife of Donald Trump: "At home at Mar-a-Lago, the presidential hopeful contemplates miracles, his campaign, and his formidable new opponent." Note, however, that the magazine cover used a different, more intriguing title: "Peering into Donald Trump's ear, and soul." (Actually, the Traister article also has a different cover title: "The joyous plot to elect Kamala Harris.")

  • The Cheney endorsements

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

Election notes:

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists, the economy, and work:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Yet another 9/11 anniversary:

  • WD Ehrhart: [09-13] Why I don't watch political speeches: A position I sympathize with, although I've never been tempted to throw things at the TV, other than the occasional snide comment. So I'd have to explain my aversion differently.

  • Nathan J Robinson/Current Affairs:

    • [09-13] The worst magazine in America: The Atlantic poses as a magazine of ideas, but its writers get away with terrible arguments. Its ascendance is a sign of the dire state of American intellectual life." Long article, seems like he spends a lot of time on effort on such obvious atrocities as Robert D Kaplan's "In Defense of Henry Kissinger." More interesting is Simon Sebag Montefiore's "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False," which is about how we shouldn't describe Israel as a "settler colony" because the settlement took place over several generations, the "settlers" are no different from immigrants elsewhere, but their designation as "settler-colonists" marks them as "ripe for murder and mutilation." Robinson spends a lot of time on this piece, but that last bit is too insane for him to bother with further. What he does instead is spend considerable time discrediting the sort of mythmaking Montefiore's "caricature" attempts. Whole books have been written to that effect. Robinson makes good points here, but misses most of the angles I would have focused on -- like why does the "settler-colonial" analysis help or hinder you from understanding the history? and what's with this "murder and mutilation"? -- as well as the deeper question of why Atlantic's editors like to publish overblown articles by ill-tempered nincompoops?

      One reason could be that some articles, even if you know they're not just wrong but horribly so, should be published somewhere, if only for smarter people to knock them down. I don't know from Montefiore, but I can imagine someone deciding they want a piece on Kissinger, and wondering if Kaplan might have an interesting take. (I've read a lot of Kaplan, and while he's often wrong -- any time he opens a paragraph with "that got me thinking," you know some really insane shit is coming around the bend -- I've learned a lot along the way. Same for George Packer, source of another Robinson case study.) You're never going to convince me that Atlantic editorial choices are above political prejudices, or even that they are seriously dedicated to providing some sort of open forum, but you need more than just a few examples. You could really use some statistical analysis. But I suppose you could point out examples that are both countersensical and have no "prestige" reason to be published, like the sanewashing article I mentioned above. Robinson does get into this a bit later on, but mostly as asides to a big bang of extra example outrages.

      I sometimes wonder whether I should break down and subscribe to Atlantic. I frequently see links to articles that look like they may be interesting (some by writers I respect, like Adam Serwer and David Graham), and some that just look like arguments I want to knock down, but in the end, I'm just too cheap (and/or committed to free speech), so I almost never click on them. (My wife does pay for digital subscriptions, so sometimes I'm able to piggyback on her accounts, but she really loathes much of what appears in Atlantic, so it's not on her list.) Still, I regularly look at their table of contents to get the lay of the land. From Monday's list, here are some articles I might have considered (a few more I slipped into relevant slots above, especially on Trump and the debate):

    • [09-13] How the soul of New York City is vanishing: Interview with Jeremiah Moss "on what neoliberalism has done to the culture and soul of New York City."

    • [09-13] What doesn't get said: "Commentary around the first Harris-Trump debate focused on Harris's impressive performance. But both candidates accepted dangerous right-wing premises on climate, immigration, economics, and foreign policy." Well, as the joke goes: two campers are surprised by a bear in the woods. One says, "you can't outrun that bear." The other says, "I don't have to; I just have to outrun you." I hate Chait's concept of "the assignment"

      , but I accept that Harris has one, which is make sure she beats Trump in November, preferably by a lot. To do that, she needs to run fast and not trip and fall. (Trump tripping and falling would help, but isn't something you can count on.) I see three risks for her: one is that the war situation gets worse, with Biden and her getting by a public that isn't very sharp on such issues; the second is that she loses support from the money people, most likely by appearing too far to the left; the third is that in steering away from the left, she loses the enthusiasm she needs to get out the popular vote. She's done a pretty solid job of avoiding two and three so far, while Trump and Vance are proving to be even worse than expected, so I'm not inclined to nitpick. War I'm more worried about, but at this point turning on Israel may be the more dangerous option: I was thinking about what Netanyahu's latest threats against Yemen might mean, and wound up wondering what would stop him from exacting his "heavy price" with "a mushroom cloud." How would Biden and Harris react to that kind of "October surprise"? (Trump would probably cheer, and seize it as a wedge issue, which would only encourage Netanyahu.)

      Still, I don't have any beef with Robinson writing articles like this. He, and his readers, quite properly focus on issues. No need for them to stop during what Matt Taibbi used to call "the stupid season." That will pass, while the issues keep coming back, at least until someone finally takes them seriously.

    • [09-11] You've got to read books: "Not everyone has the available time or energy to do deep reading. But if you're going to make confident public pronouncements on matters that require a lot of research, books will help you avoid dangerous foolishness." Needless to say, I endorse this view. Following something Billmon did on his blog (defunct since 2006), I've kept a "current reading" roll and list going for 20+ years now, so I can check how much (and how little) I've read, and just what -- at least in book form. Curiously, I haven't read any of the four books Robinson cites on the 2000 Camp David negotiations, although I've read 3-6 (or maybe 12, depends on how you slice them) other books that cover the same ground -- we're in general agreement on the facts, but I wouldn't go around citing Quandt's "it's really complicated" explanation.

      This is a big subject, one that I can imagine writing quite a lot about. It's true that bad books can be worse than no books at all. (Robinson mentions Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation on Lebanon, which is monumental, but I've actually run into people who got everything they know about Lebanon from Thomas Friedman, and they're painful to deal with.) It's also true that one can learn to read bad books and get value out of them (like the aforementioned Robert D Kaplan library). But even journalists doing "first draft" history often get much better by the time their work comes out in book form (cf. practically everyone who started embedded and wound up with a book on Iraq -- hell, even George Packer got better with a bit of perspective; I wouldn't be surprised if Thomas Ricks' Fiasco had Gung Ho! as its working title).

    • [09-05] How to approach the crisis of mass incarceration: "Mass incarceration is extremely harmful to prisoners and society. But what do we do about it? The editors of Dismantling Mass Incarceration discuss." Interview with Premal Dharia, James Forman Jr., and Maria Hawilo.

Obituaries

Books

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-11] How a 2006 book by a Harvard professor explains the Trumpist right's gender politics: "Harvey Mansfield's book on 'manliness' prefigured JD Vance's musings about 'childless cat ladies' by nearly two decades."

  • Daniel Immerwahr: [09-09] What if Ronald Reagan's presidency never really ended? "Anti-Trump Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as Trump's opposite -- yet in critical ways Reagan may have been his forerunner." A long review of Max Boot's "definitive" 880 page biography, Reagan: His Life and Legend.

    Recent events have forced Boot to ask if Reagan was part of the rot that has eaten away at Republicanism. Boot now sees him as complicit in the "hard-right turn" the Party took after Dwight D. Eisenhower which "helped set the G.O.P. -- and the country -- on the path" to Trump.

    And yet Boot sees a redeeming quality as well: Reagan could relax his ideology. He was an anti-tax crusader who oversaw large tax hikes, an opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment who appointed the first female Supreme Court Justice, and a diehard anti-Communist who made peace with Moscow. "I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help," Reagan famously quipped. But he delivered that line while announcing "record amounts" of federal aid. He viewed the world in black-and-white, yet he governed in gray.

    I rather doubt that Reagan wanted to "govern in gray." That was a concession to the Democrats who controlled Congress, to the still-existing liberal Republicans, to the liberal courts, and to the popularity of New Deal and Great Society programs. Reagan was realistic about what he could accomplish, but he did move the needle on all fronts. How anyone could see his program, or his personal charisma, as heroic escapes me.

    Here's another review:

  • Michael Ledger-Lomas: All roads lead to ruin: "Sunil Amrith's The Burning Earth takes us on a gloomy and bleak tour of how, in the name of progress, Western empires made a mess of everything."

  • Rohan Silva: [2022-09-19] Fen, Bog & Swamp by Annie Proulx review -- where have all out wetlands gone? I just read this book, and quoted a bit of it in the introduction, which is why I found this review. While there is much of interest in the book, it's connection to climate change never gets developed, beyond the occasional occasional notes that peatlands sequester a lot of carbon, so their loss has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

  • Annie Levin: [09-16] Why you should host a hootenanny: "Outside of a church or karaoke room, singing is mostly left to the professionals. But anyone can -- and should -- partake in the joys of collective singing." I can imagine, but I gave up singing in public in 5th grade, when Lannie Goldston insisted that I lip-synch, and kicked me in the shins every time I slipped up and uttered a sound.

Chatter

It took me the better part of two days to finally insert all of the entries in my April 25, 2024 Book Roundup into my Book Notes file, which at this point is probably too long to be a useful web page (6944 paragraphs, 369868 words), but which I need to figure out whether I've mentioned a book before. I couldn't really start on a new post until that bit of housekeeping got done.

One thing I noticed there was this blurb on a 2017 book (presumably written then) that seems completely relevant to this week's news:

Nathan Thrall: The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (2017, Metropolitan Books): Hard to think about the conflict without considering how to end it, especially if you're an American, since we've long assumed that our mission on Earth is to oversee some sort of agreement. Thrall has been following the conflict closely for some time now, and writes up what he's figured out: that the only way it ends is if some greater power wills it. The title has a certain irony in that the Israelis, following the British before them, have often said that violence is the only language the Palestinians understand. But as students of the conflict should know by now, the only times Israel has compromised or backed down have been when they been confronted with substantial force: as when Eisenhower prodded them to leave Sinai in 1956, when Carter brokered their 1979 peace with Egypt, when Rabin ended the Intifada by recognizing the PLO, or when Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000. Since then no progress towards resolution has been made because no one with the power to influence Israel has had the will to do so -- although Israel's frantic reactions against BDS campaigns shows their fear of such pressure. On the other hand, one should note that force itself has its limits: Palestinians have compromised on many things, but some Israeli demands -- ones that violate norms for equal human rights -- are always bound to generate resistance. What makes the conflict so intractable now is that Israel has so much relative power that they're making impossible demands. So while Thrall would like to be even-handed and apply external force to both sides, it's Israel that needs to move its stance to something mutually tolerable. The other big questions are who would or could apply this force, and why. Up to 2000, the US occasionally acted, realizing that its regional and world interests transcended its affection for Israel, but those days have passed, replaced by token, toothless gestures, if any at all. It's hard to see that changing -- not just because Israel has so much practice manipulating US politics but because America has largely adopted Israeli norms of inequality and faith in brute power.

Curiously, I noted but wrote nothing about Thrall's later book:

Nathan Thrall: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (2023, Metropolitan Books).

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Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Music Week

September archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42939 [42905] rated (+34), 28 [30] unrated (-2).

Speaking of Which overshot its Sunday deadline once again. Not sure whether I should brag about how hard I worked (154 links, 10515 words, several lengthy comments), or make excuses for the time I spent on other things -- notably, a fairly large menu for dinner Thursday. I added a bit more today, but not much. I figure most stories will keep, but I did add some more pieces on the late jazz critic Dan Morgenstern.

Big expense of time today was casting a ballot for the DownBeat Readers Poll, for which I've taken a few notes. I put very little thought into the effort, as the results are usually pretty worthless. I've already noted one vote I clearly didn't think through (Female Vocalist: Catherine Russell over Fay Victor; both have good records this year, but Victor's is my top-rated album; careerwise they're pretty comparable, with Victor taking the riskier path.)

What took considerable time was reformatting the album lists, which I used to check how much I've listened to: new jazz albums: 97/110 (88.1%), historical jazz (24/32, 75.0%), blues (23/34, 67.6%), and "beyond" (28/32, 87.5%). I'll nudge those numbers up a bit in coming weeks, but the first 3-4 new jazz albums I looked up weren't readily available.

One disturbing thing that emerged from the exercise was that I found four albums I had reviewed but didn't have an entry for in my database. I found all of the reviews in the Streamnotes archives. I also found this week's Patricia Brennan review back in the August archive. At my age, mental lapses like these are troubling. My eyes have also been pretty bad the last few days. I haven't gotten back to the "to do" list I started a couple weeks ago, let alone checked much off of it. We did manage to get the latest Covid boosters today, and stocked up on groceries. Plus I have this almost ready to roll out.

Seems like the A-list albums this week (except for Lowe) took a lot of extra plays. Hicks, Alvin/Gilmore, and Shorter all got upgrades the day after I had them filed at B+(***). The others got re-checks. The old rap records came off a checklist of 5-mic albums as rated by The Source (in a notebook entry). Oddly enough, all four albums I hadn't heard came in sequence, from 2001-10. I've often explained that my focus shifted in the 1990s from contemporary rock/rap/pop to jazz and oldies when I grew tired and/or disgusted with "grunge and gangsta." This just shows how completely I tuned gangsta out. Much more back then that I missed, including everything by the Scarface and Bun B precursor groups (Geto Boys, UGK). I doubt I'll do a dive any time soon, but the old school beats struck a chord, and not much really offends me these days.

Speaking of checklists, I compiled one based on two posts by Dan Weiss on "The Best 50 Rock Bands Right Now" (links therein). A couple of this week's records were sampled off this list, and there's still a dozen I haven't heard yet.

I didn't watch the Tuesday debate, but my wife did, and stuck with it to the end. She thought Harris did fine. I overheard bits, and watched the recap on Colbert. I heard Harris say a few things I really disagree with, especially on foreign policy. Literally everything I heard Trump say was a lie, but he delivered them with relentless conviction, which seems to be all that way too many people need. Plenty of time to rehash that next week.

New records reviewed this week:

Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore: TexiCali (2024, Yep Roc): Country-folksingers from California and Texas, the former starting in the Blasters, the latter in the Flatlanders, both with long and distinguished solo careers, Gilmore with an especially remarkable voice. This starts off rather perfunctory, but gets better, and better still, with "We're Still Here" an applause line, anticipating an encore. A- [sp]

Bacchae: Next Time (2024, Get Better): "Punk band from Washington, DC," Katie McD (vocals/keys), with guitar (Andrew Breiner), bass (Rena Hagins), drums (Eileen O'Grady), fourth album since 2024. B+(***) [sp]

Rahsaan Barber & Everyday Magic: Six Words (2022 [2024], Jazz Music City): Saxophonist (alto, soprano, tenor), fourth album since 2011, leads a sextet with trumpet (Pharez Whitted), trombone (Roland Barber), piano, bass, and drums, through a nice set of original pieces. B+(**) [cd]

Andrew Barker/William Parker/Jon Irabagon: Bakunawa (2022 [2024], Out of Your Head): Drummer, not a lot under his own name, but I remember a 2003 album with Matthew Shipp and Charles Waters fondly, also his work in Gold Sparkle Trio (also with Waters). Discogs gives him 65 credits since 1993. Of course, the bassist (also playing b flat pocket tuba and gralla here) has a great many more, and the saxophonist (tenor/sopranino) is up to 144 since 1998. Best part here is the gralla/sopranino clash. B+(***) [sp]

Beabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024, Dirty Hit): Filipino-born, Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus, grew up in London, pop singer-songwriter, third album, opened on top of UK charts, limited US breakout. Girly voice, has a soft touch that I find rather appealing, but don't quite trust, until she delivers some substance. A- [sp]

Geoff Bradfield: Colossal Abundance (2023 [2024], Calligram): Tenor saxophonist, also plays bass clarinet and mbira, albums since 2003, this one mostly features an expansive 12-piece group with African percussion. B+(***) [cd]

Patricia Brennan Septet: Breaking Stretch (2023 [2024], Pyroclastic): Vibraphonist, if memory serves was the Poll winner for her debut album, has since only grown more ambitious. Wrote compositions here, also plays marimba and electronics, but this is mostly a powerhouse group, with saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Mark Shim, trumpet (Adam O'Farrill), bass (Kim Cass), drums (Marcus Gilmore), and percussion (Mauricio Herrera). A- [cd]

The Chisel: What a Fucking Nightmare (2024, Pure Noise): English punk band, second album. B+(*) [sp]

Clairo: Charm (2024, Clairo): Singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill, born in Atlanta but grew up in Massachusetts, started with home recordings in her teens, with an EP at 15 and a full album just before she turned 20. Third album here, relaxed and engaging. B+(***) [sp]

Greg Copeland: Empire State (2024, Franklin & Highland, EP): Folkie singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, three widely spaced albums (1982, 2008, 2020), the debut produced by Jackson Browne. This adds five more well-observed songs, 20:31. B+(**) [cd]

Elbow: Audio Vertigo (2024, Polydor): Britpop band, debut 2001, won a Mercury Prize in 2009, 10th album, only the second I've bothered with. Not bad, but still not very interesting. B [sp]

Fontaines D.C.: Romance (2024, XL): Irish post-punk band, from Dublin, fourth album since 2019, singer-songwriter Grian Chatten also has a solo album, sounds good. B+(**) [sp]

Future Islands: People Who Aren't There Anymore (2024,4AD): American synthpop band, based in Baltimore, Samuel T Herring the singer-songwriter, seventh studio album since 2008, has a beat, a vibe, and some human interest. B+(*) [sp]

Dylan Hicks & Small Screens: Modern Flora (2023 [2024], Soft Launch): Singer-songwriter (and novelist) from Minnesota, plays piano, called his first self-released cassette The New Dylan in 1990, has one album I've A-listed (2012's Sings Bolling Greene), a couple more that high in Christgau's estimation, though not quite in mine. I was surprised to receive this, but found it opens with a slow jazz instrumental, with horn section and cello, setting the mood before easing into a song. He sustains the jazzy vibe, reminding me of Donald Fagen, while interesting bits of songs sneak into your subconscious. A- [cd]

Illuminati Hotties: Power (2024, Hopeless): Indie rock (or twee pop?) band led by Sarah Tudzin, third album. B+(**) [sp]

Jon Irabagon: I Don't Hear Nothin\' but the Blues: Volume 3 Part 2: Exuberant Scars (2024, Irabbagast): Tenor saxophonist, fourth installment of a series that started in 2008 as a duo with Mike Pride (drums), added guitarist Mick Barr for Volume 2, and a second guitarist, Ava Mendoza, for Volume 3. Each album consists of one long improv piece, this one 45:52. B+(**) [bc]

Jon Irabagon Trio + One: Dinner & Dancing (2023 [2024], Irrabagast): Tenor/sopranino saxophonist, also alto clarinet here, trio with Mark Helias (bass) and Barry Altschul (drums) described as "longstanding" (I didn't find any previous "Trio" album, but they shared credit for a 2013 album, and there's one with Altschul from 2010.) The "+ One" is pianist Uri Caine. B+(***) [bc]

Tom Johnson Jazz Orchestra: Time Takes Odd Turns (2023 [2024], self-released): Not the minimalist composer, this one is a professor emeritus of psychology at Indiana State, has studied "effects of listening to sad music and personality styles of jazz musicians," first album, arranged for 20-piece big band plus some extras. B [sp]

Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra: Louis Armstrong's America Volume 1 (2023-24 [2024], ESP-Disk, 2CD): In Lowe's America, Armstrong never died but just entered some parallel dimension where he continued to evolve, along with Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dave Schildkraut, Bo Diddley, Ornette Coleman, Lenny Bruce, Roswell Rudd, and hundreds of others. I've long thought of him primarily as a historian, but he plays alto sax, has been making records since 1990, and significantly picked up the pace c. 2011 (cf. the 3-CD Blues and the Empirical Truth), which seems to have been around the time he somehow figured out how to tap into this extra dimension, and claim copyright for all he found. My eyes aren't good enough to read the microprint on the CD packaging, but it's online, and entertaining with or without the music, which sounds like something altogether different. Bill James came up with a concept he called "similarity scores," which is relatively easy to calculate for baseball players, as so much of what they do can be quantified, whereas very little for musicians can. But intuitively, the jazz figure Lowe is most similar to is Henry Threadgill, as they both make music that is new yet steeped in everything that came before. A- [cd]

Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra: Louis Armstrong's America Volume 2 (2023-24 [2024], ESP-Disk, 2CD): Major personal peeve here is that something that was obviously intended as a single 4-CD work (the discs here are identified as "CD 3" and "CD 4," and the liner notes cited in the Volume 1 review cover them) has been split up into a pair of releases. I've spent a lot of energy the last couple years forcing poll voters to choose between related releases -- I thought the 2022 Mary Halvorson releases (Amaryllis, Belladonna) were distinct enough for an easy call, the Charles Lloyd "trilogy of trios" came out separately before they were eventually boxed, and the first two Ahmad Jamal Emerald City Nights were part of a series that lapsed into the next year -- but forcing people to split hairs between these two volumes will be tough. I'm not sure I can do it myself (although as I'm writing this, "CD 4" is sounding exceptional). One should mention somewhere here that the supporting cast, as noted on the front covers, includes "Marc Ribot, Andy Stein, Ursula Oppens, Lewis Porter, Loren Schoenberg, Aaron Johnson, & Ray Anderson," although there are others (not in the "liner notes" but in the fine cover print I can't read, which minimally includes Matthew Shipp, Ray Suhy, Elijah Shiffer, and Jeppe Zeeberg -- names I recognize as regulars and/or as more recent raves. A [cd]

Shelby Lynne: Consequences of the Crown (2024, Monument): Country singer-songwriter, 16th studio album since 1989. Ended before I had anything to say, which is probably unfair, but noteworthy in itself. B [sp]

Rose Mallett: Dreams Realized (2024, Carrie-On Productions): "Veteran jazz and soul singer," "living jazz legend," old enough for white hair, but nothing on her in Discogs, even for backup vocals at Motown, so this seems to be her debut album. Standards (counting BB King and Stevie Wonder), one original, striking voice, interesting arrangements. B+(***) [cd]

Brian Marsella/Jon Irabagon: Blue Hour (2019-22 [2024], Irabbagast): Duo, piano/keyboards and saxes (mezzo soprano/tenor/sopranino). Interesting clashes, but can get a bit sketchy for too long. B+(*) [bc]

Claire Rousay: Sentiment (2024, Thrill Jockey): Moved from Winnipeg to San Antonio, "is known for using field recordings to create musique concrète pieces," Discogs lists 26 albums since 2019, this by far the closest to a high profile label. B+(*) [sp]

Bria Skonberg: What It Means (2023 [2024], Cellar Live): Canadian trumpet player, half-dozen albums since 2009, also sings (quite well), recorded this one in New Orleans, which provides musicians and inspiration -- the better part of the album. B+(**) [sp]

This Is Lorelei: Box for Buddy, Box for Star (2022 [2024], Double Double Whammy): Solo album by Nate Amos, away from his group, Water From Your Eyes. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Raymond Burke: The Southland Recordings 1958-1960 (1958-60 [2024], Jazzland): New Orleans clarinet player (1904-86, trad jazz, his earliest recordings are collected by American Music in 1937-1949. This picks up three sessions, most previously unreleased, later but probably little different. B+(*) [sp]

Gastr Del Sol: We Have Dozens of Titles (1993-98 [2024], Drag City, 2CD): Chicago-based experimental rock group, principally David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke, released four albums 1993-98, the dozen titles here (103 minutes) mostly previously unreleased live dates, although this includes a 17:12 EP where the group expands to ten. Vocals are rare, but some talk got picked up. The music itself leans toward avant-minimalism, but not just that. B+(**) [sp]

Wayne Shorter: Celebration, Volume 1 (2014 [2024], Blue Note): First in a promised series of archival albums from the late saxophonist, a live set from the Stockholm Jazz Festival with a quartet of Danilo Perez (piano), John Patitucci (bass), and Brian Blade (drums) -- the same quartet that put Shorter back in business c. 2000 (cf. Footprints Live!). I've never been much of a Shorter fan, but this group gets him going, finally convincing me that there's something distinct to his soprano sax. A- [sp]

Old music:

Charles Bevel: Meet "Mississippi Charles" Bevel (1973, A&M): Google identifies him as an actor, multi-media artist, and lecturer, but Discogs credits him with two albums, this debut and one more from 2000. Easy as folk, light on the blues. B+(**) [yt]

Bun B: Trill O.G. (2010, Rap-A-Lot): Houston rapper Bernard Freeman (b. 1973), started in UGK, went solo in 2005 with Trill, sold enough for RIAA Gold, kept "Trill" in all of his subsequent titles, of which this was his third. The next-to-last of The Source's 5-mic albums -- Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, also 2010, was the last -- starts out as another gangsta retread, but ends strong ("All a Dream" and "It's Been a Pleasure"). B+(**) [sp]

Raymond Burke: Raymond Burke 1937-1949 (1937-49 [2014], American Music): Trad jazz clarinetist from New Orleans, the first batch (15 tracks from 1949) by Ray Burke's Speakeasy Boys, one track from 1937 with George Hartman's Band, others from 1942 with Vincent Cass and 1945 with Woodrow Russell. Sound is variable, but there is some real spirit here. B+(**) [sp]

Lil' Kim: The Naked Truth (2005, Atlantic): Rapper Kimberly Jones, recorded four albums 1996-2005, selling 15 million, only one more album since. This was her fourth, "the only album by a female rapper to be rated five mics by The Source," runs 21 songs, 76:31, mostly filler, and not just the skits and guest shots. B [sp]

Nas: Stillmatic (2001, Columbia): Rapper Nasir Jones, fifth album checks back on his 1994 debut Illmatic, justly famous, although I was warned off the stretch of albums that followed, including this one -- which, like the original, showed up recently on a checklist which added only a handful of post-2000 albums to its roster of 1990s classics. This remains haunted by gangsta myth, hooked by savvy samples. High point is "Rule," what "everyone wants." B+(***) [sp]

Scarface: The Fix (2002, Def Jam South): Houston rapper Brad Jordan, joined the Geto Boys in 1989 and never really left, despite a string of solo albums from 1991 on, this his 7th. Cold-blooded gangsta rhymes, so relentless it's hard to stay offended, especially given the beats, which is what made the '90s rock. B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Gino Amato: Latin Crsossroads (Ovation) [09-01]
  • Dawn Clement/Steve Kovalcheck/Jon Hamar: Dawn Clement/Steve Kovalcheck/Jon Hamar Trio (self-released) [09-06]
  • Rebecca Kilgore: A Little Taste: A Tribute to Dave Frishberg (Cherry Pie Music) [10-28]
  • Delfeayo Marsalis Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Crescent City Jewels (Troubadour Jass) [08-30]
  • Eric Person: Rhythm Edge (Distinction) [10-01]
  • Claudio Scolari Project: Opera 8 (Principal) [04-05]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, September 9, 2024

Speaking of Which

I opened this file early enough (2024-09-03 01:16AM), but did little on it, and spent much of Wednesday/Thursday working up a fairly large dinner menu. So I didn't really get into this until Saturday, and then got waylaid on the long Plitnick comment (conceived in lieu of an introduction). I still hoped to wrap this up Sunday evening, but after a TV break was too exhausted to continue. Then Monday morning (for me, anyway) I quickly found myself writing more long comments (look for the star bullets below). Still hoping to post Monday evening, but once again time is running out.

After several weeks dominated by campaign news, this week Israel/Gaza came roaring back with a vengeance -- which reflects poorly on Biden/Harris, not that they are alone in that regard. Tuesday's Trump-Harris debate will probably be a big deal next week, although I'm skeptical that anything good will come out of it. I just got an unsolicited text from "Harris":

Tomorrow night may be my first debate with Donald Trump, but I am no stranger to taking on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.

Believe me when I say I know Trump's type. And on tomorrow's debate stage, I will do my best to put my record against his.

Then she asks for money.

Approaching 10PM, I'm giving up for the day, and calling this a week. I've just spent the last several hours on even more Israel comments. My guess is that there's a decent essay buried herein, awaiting an editor I don't have to dig up the bits, restructure them a bit, and demand some finishing touches. Having barely touched on the election stories, I'm just now seeing lots of disturbing stories I have no energy for right now. (Last add was Kuttner's story on Harris' "capitulation," after which I saw a similar story in New Republic, and I have little doubt there are more. And now I'm seeing new Intelligencer pieces I suddenly find I can't read by Jonathan Chait: Kamala Harris should cut Joe Biden loose -- hasn't he been reading about those "capitulations to capital"? -- and Ed Kilgore: Believe it or not, many voters think Trump is a moderate, let alone Margaret Hartmann: Melania slams effort to 'silence' Trump on social-media site he owns.)

Top story threads:

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Isaam Ahmed: [08-29] Under cover of Gaza war, Israel is seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank: "The Gaza war is serving as a cover for Israel to accelerate expansionist policies in the West Bank, with the ultimate aim of annexing the territory."

  • Anadolu Agency:

    • [09-06] 'Game of demographics': How Israel aims to wipe out Palestinians from Occupied East Jerusalem.

    • [08-22] Is the US a suitable actor for a mediation role in Gaza? I think at this point, we can all agree that the US cannot act as an impartial arbiter in the dispute. That ship sailed long ago, assuming it ever floated in the first place. But mediation is a slightly different art: for that, you need to be able to find a solution acceptable to both sides, and you need to be willing and able to apply leverage to both sides to close the deal. This conflict should be slightly simpler than most, as Israel has all of the power, so mediation only has to work to rein in one side. That makes America the only possible mediator for the conflict, because only America has any serious leverage to bring Israel to a deal -- partly because American support has been so essential to Israel for so long. (Proviso here is that while Palestinians have no power to set terms, they can reject and resist imposed terms they find demeaning and debilitating. Similarly, Israel can also reject terms, regardless of the mediator's leverage.)

      You can go through Israel's history and see various examples of American mediation working (e.g., Sadat-Begin in 1979, the recent Abraham Accords, as far as they got) and not working (Barak-Assad and Barak-Arafat in 2000). The latter failed because Barak's demands, due to internal political pressure, became unreasonable, and/or Clinton didn't have the willpower to put sufficient pressure on Barak. The situation is even worse with Biden, because he seems to have no independent willpower over anything having to do with Israel: he can't even imagine any alternative solutions, nor dare he challenge Israel's leaders. On the other hand, can you even conceive of any other mediator? You may recall the Quartet, but that was never more than a US front -- and given how subservient the US has become, Israelis were free to treat them as a mirage.

      So we're stuck: Israel has no need to change course unless the US challenges it with an acceptable alternative, which the US won't dare do as long as it is under Israel's thumb. With nothing to stop them, or even to induce second thoughts -- Israel is not quite the monolithic autocracy it has presented since last October -- Israel's genocide will continue, until its logical conclusion (which could take years or decades, to the whole world's detriment). All anyone else can do is to look for weak links that could be moved with the limited pressure we can muster. That's already happened enough to make the powers involved here nervous, and the movement to end this war and the injustices that caused and sustain it will only grow. But make no mistake: this only ends when Israel is willing to change, and that means America must also be willing to change.

  • Mariam Barghouti: [09-04] Inside the brutal siege of Jenin: "The Israeli army is destroying civilian infrastructure, blocking medical access, and conducting mass arrests in the largest West Bank operation in years."

  • Ramzy Baroud: [09-05] War on children -- Gaza kids are unvaccinated, hungry and orphaned.

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-04] The real reason Netanyahu won't end the Gaza war: "The Israeli public has turned against Netanyahu's war, but they can't stop it." I'm not sure how true this is. Israelis have run hot-and-cold on Netanyahu all year, but the only practical dissent on the war has come from the hostage families, who would make some concessions to release the hostages, whereas Netanyahu and his allies would be happier if the hostages would die already (see Hannibal Directive). But the war, fought so brutally that many outsiders have called it genocide, seems to have few dissenters within Israel (at least among the Israelis that count). Netanyahu still has a fairly slim coalition majority (64 of 120), so it wouldn't take many defections to bring it down. If Likud really was the "center-right" party as claimed, it shouldn't be hard to fracture, but it appears that they're not merely loyal to Netanyahu, and that Netanyahu is not merely maneuvering to keep out of jail, but that the policies Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have been demanding are things they've long wanted to do.

    The answer is brute power politics. The 2022 election gave right-wing parties a clear majority in the Knesset (Israel's parliament), allowing Netanyahu to build the most far-right government in Israeli history. Though this coalition has since become extremely unpopular, there's no way for voters to kick it out on their own.

    The government could only collapse if it faces defections from inside the governing coalition. But at present, the greatest threat to Netanyahu's coalition comes from his extreme right flank, which wants him to continue the war at all costs. And for that reason, he seems intent on doing so. . . .

    "For [the government to fall], Israeli political leaders would need common sense, political courage, and a moral backbone. Too clearly, the overwhelming majority have none," Dahlia Scheindlin, a leading Israel pollster, writes in the Haaretz newspaper.

  • Jessica Buxbaum:

  • Abdallah Fayyad: [09-04] How a disease the world (mostly) vanquished reared its head in Gaza: "Israel's attacks on Gaza created conditions for polio to spread. Now, a vaccination campaign is racing against time."

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [09-07] 'The world has gotten used to our blood': Israeli massacres in Gaza continue: "Despite the shift in the media's attention to regional developments and the Israeli invasion of the northern West Bank, the massacres in Gaza continue in silence. In the first three days of September, Israel committed nine massacres in the strip."

  • Shatha Hanaysha: [09-06] 'Days filled with terror': Palestinians in Jenin recount harrowing 10-day Israeli army invasion: "Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, including the Jenin refugee camp, early on Friday."

  • Gideon Levy:

    • [08-29] Israel holds a ceremony for a war that hasn't ended -- instead of ending it. Looks like Israel's "never forget" industry is back, working harder than ever:

      Why is it even important to hold a ceremony on October 7? Is there anyone who doesn't remember? And has anyone learned any lessons from it? . . .

      Since October 7, Israel has been wallowing nonstop in October 7. There has yet to be a news program that doesn't wallow again in that day -- the longest day in Israel's history, the day that still hasn't ended.

      Yet this, too, is meant to repress, deny and escape what really matters. We'll wallow in the past, and then we won't have to think about how to extricate ourselves from it. We'll play the victim to the hilt, and then we won't have to deal with the victims of our own horrific crimes.

      October 7 doesn't need a ceremony. It's still alive and well, dead and held hostage. It's present all the time.

    • [09-05] When six Israelis are mourned more than 40,000 Palestinians: The "six" were hostages recently found dead by Israel. The "40,000" is the minimal number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli military operations since October 7, 2023.

      While the world is shocked by the fate of Gaza, it has never paid similar respect to the Palestinian victims. The president of the United States does not call the relatives of fallen Palestinians, not even if they, like the Goldberg-Polins, had American citizenship. The United States has never called for the release of thousands of Palestinian abductees that Israel has detained without trial. A young Israeli woman who was killed at the Nova festival arouses more sympathy and compassion in the world than a female teenage refugee from Jabalya. The Israeli is more similar to "the world."

      Everything has already been said about the overlooking and concealment of Palestinian suffering in the Israeli public conversation, and not enough has yet been said. The Palestinian killed in Gaza who had a face, a name and a life story and whose killing shocked Israel has not yet been born.

  • Yoav Litvin:

  • Harold Meyerson: [09-03] Only Israelis can end their war on Gaza: "But even the massive demonstrations weren't enough to get Bibi to shut down the war to which his own job security is linked."

  • Abdaljawad Omar: [09-04] Testing the boundaries for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank: "The current operation in the West Bank is meant to test the boundaries of what Israel will be allowed to get away with. It is setting the stage for the forced ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people." The author is basically right, but I have a couple nits to pick. There are no boundaries, in large part because there is no one monitoring what they are or are not "allowed to do." If their actions seem measured, it's because they have their own reasons for measuring them. They aren't seriously worried about the Americans turning on them, but they respect the threat enough to take some care in managing the issues. It seems to me that their game in the West Bank is to provoke an armed uprising, similar to Gaza, which they can then respond to with a major escalation of violence (as they did in Gaza). The the West Bank is a trickier proposition, so they're exercising a bit more care, but they've been pretty relentless about tightening down their control to maximize pressure.

  • Paul R Pillar: [09-04] Why Isreal is attacking the West Bank: "Another chapter in the long, tragic story of Tel Aviv's leaders choosing to live forever by the sword."

  • Meron Rapoport: [09-04] To sacrifice or free the hostages? Israeli protesters have chosen a side: "Fearing for the remaining captives, the mass rallies that erupted across Israel were essentially demanding an end to the war -- and Netanyahu knows it." There is an element of hopeful thinking here, as the author admits: "To be clear, such a statement was not uttered from the stage nor was it seen on many placards, save for among the small pockets of left-wing protesters that formed the anti-occupation bloc."

  • Adnan Abdul Razzaq: [09-05] Israel's growing emigration rate has serious consequences:

    The number of migrants to Israel fell by more than half between 7 October and 29 November last year, according to statistics provided by the Israeli Immigration Authority. The Times of Israel reported that half-a-million people have left the occupation state and not returned, which confirms the erosion of trust and the decline of the population which frightens the regime in Tel Aviv. Prophecies about the "curse of the eighth decade" loom ever more menacingly over the apartheid state of Israel.

  • Nathalie Rozanes: [09-05] The Gaza war is an environmental catastrophe: "Toxic waste, water-borne diseases, vast carbon emissions: Dr. Mariam Abd El Hay describes the myriad harms of Israel's assault to the region's ecosystems." I'd say all wars are environmental disasters, and have been so for quite some while now, but this one is exceptionally egregious, both in the extent of devastation and for its clearly deliberate intent, where rendering the environment uninhabitable is a critical strategy for genocide.

    In recent months, the phrase ecocide has been widely used to describe the environmental impact of the Israel-Hamas war (as Wikipedia put it). "Ecocide" is not a new coinage: the Wikipedia article cites several examples, starting with the US use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam, but doesn't mention similar antecedents like the fire-bombing of urban area in WWII, atomic bombs in Japan (although Chernobyl gets a mention), or the bombing of dams in North Korea, as well as older strategies aimed at mass starvation (another Israeli strategy).

    I've probably cited some of these already, but a quick search for "Gaza ecocide" produces a long list of articles, including:

  • Devi Sridhar: [09-05] Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza.

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Branko Marcetic: [09-04] Netanyahu is blocking a hostage deal. You know that. You've known that all along. Netanyahu has always welcomed the opportunity of war. I still clearly remember him on TV on Sept. 11, 2001, grin on face, inviting the US to join Israel in the "war on terror." He said something to the effect of "now you know what it feels like."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-06] The genocide in Gaza is as American as it is Israeli. The US won't stop it. "The desire for a ceasefire in the United States, certainly among Democrat voters, is clear. Yet, as the slaughter in Gaza enters its twelfth month, why does the US continue to act the way it does?" I woke up this morning thinking I should write an introduction on just this subject, so this article gives me a chance to dodge the introduction -- which I really don't have time for -- and just hang a couple comments here. I think we need to sort this out several ways, which give us slightly different answers.

    1. Has Israel embarked on a deliberate program of genocide? Short answer is "yes." Most Israelis will quibble over the term, and there are various nuances and idiosyncrasies to their approach, but they don't qualify the point. I could write much more on how this resembles and/or differs from other genocides over history, but the key points are: they know what they want to do, they are working deliberately to realize their intentions, and they have no effective internal constraints against continuing.

    2. Do the Israeli people (by which one means the Jewish ones with full citizenship, which is a privileged subset of the total) support this program of genocide? Short answer is "pretty much so." Very few Israelis object to the dehumanization of Palestinians, which underlies the indiscriminate brutality Israelis practice on them. Israeli culture is designed to inculcate the fear and alienation that makes this dehumanization possible.

    3. Do Americans understand and support Israel's genocide? Some pretty clearly do: e.g., anyone (like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton) who've uttered the words "finish it!" Especially prominent among these people are neoconservatives who envy and admire Israel's habit of using force to impose its will on its supposed enemies. Such people are still very prominent in US security circles in both political parties. But they are a small (but exceptionally influential) faction. A somewhat larger faction, including many otherwise liberal Democrats, is simply loyal to Israel, and they are mostly in denial about the genocide. (Their share is especially large among the politician class, as their world has long been shaped by donors and lobbyists.) Support for Israel has long been tied to cultural prejudices -- including America's experience as a settler colony, its racist divisions, religious focus, and fondness for world wars -- maintained with extraordinary propaganda. Nonetheless, it is likely that most Americans who are aware of what Israel is doing to Palestinians are deeply unsettled and want to see the war and genocide stop.

    4. The Biden administration reflects all of these American views (but especially the blind loyalty expected of politicians on the take), but rather than trying to reconcile contradictions, they have kept doing what they've long been doing -- supplying Israel with large quantities of money and arms, while providing Israel with diplomatic cover -- only touched with schizophrenia. (I can think of dozens of examples, but let's start with the air drops of relief supplies.) I think you have to ask five questions about Biden's handling of this affair:

      1. Did Biden conspire with, or intend for, Israel to commit genocide? I think (but don't know) the answer here is "no." But this does show considerable naïveté and/or carelessness on Biden's part, as the conditions for Israel escalating its long-established program of collective punishment into the range of genocide have been brewing for more than a decade, and the provocation of the Oct. 7 attack was exactly the sort of event that could trigger such an escalation. That Biden's first response was to offer Israel full-throated, open-ended support was seen by Netanyahu as an open invitation.

      2. Did American support materially contribute to Israel's ability to commit genocide? The answer there is "yes," which is to say that the US was materially complicit in the genocide. The obvious follow up here is: did Biden attempt to withdraw or limit American support to end this complicity? The answer there is "not really." Similar questions can be asked about political, financial, and/or moral support, to which the answers are the same.

      3. Is Israel able and willing to carry out its genocide without American (and allied) support? I think the answer here is "maybe, but not nearly as effectively, or for such a sustained period." The main material supply was ammunition. Perhaps more important is money. Israel has maintained a very high mobilization for an exceptionally long time, while Israel's economy has lagged, so American money has helped pick up the slack. While Israel could self-fund their war, the cost-benefit analysis -- which is to say the viability of the Netanyahu coalition -- would be much harder to justify without the incoming cash.

      4. Is there some reason beyond loyalty for the US to support Israel's program of genocide? Given America's efforts at global hegemony, it is easy to imagine that there must be some sort of master plan, but beyond promoting arms sales, global finance, and the oil industry, there is very little coherence in US foreign policy, and much arbitrary prejudice -- which Israel has been very effective at playing for its own peculiar interests. So I would answers this "no," and add that Biden is hurting the real interests[*] of the American people in aligning with Israel.

        [*] By which I mean peace, cooperation, and development of equitable and mutually advantageous relationships, but those "interests" have no effective lobby in Washington (unlike the arms and oil industries, and Israel).

      5. If Biden finally decides to dissuade Netanyahu from his present course, could he? The answer here is "probably," but it wouldn't be easy. First problem would be gathering enough political support in the US to keep the idea from being strangled in the crib. The Israel lobby is very focused on preventing any politician from even considering any shift away from complete support for anything Israel's leaders desire, and they have a lot of influence both in the media and behind closed doors.

        Then you have to calculate enough pressure to move Netanyahu, who has more experience in manipulating American politicians than anyone else alive, and therefore more arrogance at resisting them. I have some ideas about how to do this, but it's a tricky business, especially when you start out on your knees, with no sense of decency or morals.

        Finally, you need to anticipate which compromises will ultimately prove to be acceptable, achievable, and viable. This, too, is hard, not least because the people who you need to get to accept the compromises -- which is to say, the ones with enough power to ignore you (by which I mean Israel) -- want something else instead (or just to play the game forever), and are unwilling to see the benefit of settling for something less injurious to the other party than they think deserved. Relative power warps the field of options so severely that truly just solutions may be impossible, so the best you can do is choose among disappointments, trying to pick ones that will lessen problems, rather than exacerbate them.

    5. Both Israel and the US should consider the reputational damage their complicity in genocide will cause them. It's not just that other people are tempted to sanction and shun them, but it calls into question their motives and behavior everywhere.

    Also related here:

    • Meron Rapoport: [09-02] 'This is also America's war': Why the US isn't stopping Israel's Gaza onslaught: "Israelis and Palestinians are making a terrible mistake by looking exclusively to Washington to solve their problems, says former negotiator Daniel Levy." When asked about Harris's DNC speech, Levy says:

      I think she achieved what she wanted: that both of those kinds of reporting could come out, and that both AIPAC and J Street could endorse it. But if we shift attention to the Palestinian rights movement or the Uncommitted Movement, there is nothing there for them. The way the DNC treated the issue tells you everything you need to know about the ways things aren't changing -- for instance, [the fact there was] no Palestinian speaker or perspective on the stage.

      Harris can talk about bad things that have happened to Palestinians, but from her words you wouldn't know who caused it -- a natural disaster? An earthquake? When Hamas does something bad, they are named and shamed; but when bad things happen to Palestinians, there is never any acknowledgement that they are caused by Israel.

      The nuances and differences between Biden and Harris do exist, and they matter, but we always have to go deeper. The expectation is totally misplaced that the United States will solve this.

    • Mohamad Bazzi: [09-06] Kamala Harris should do what Joe Biden won't: commit to actually reining in Israel: But she won't, and I'm not sure she should -- what she should say is that the slaughter and destruction has to end, that it's really unacceptable for any country to treat any people like that under any circumstances, and amends need to be made to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. And it's ok here to use the passive voice, which she has a lot of practice at when describing things that Israel and/or the US have done to get to this point. What we need to know now is that she takes this seriously, and will work on it when and as she's able, but I expect that her work will almost all be done in the shadows. It is important that Israel be seen as calling their own shots. And it is important that the US not be seen that way -- we really need to break out of the really bad habit of thinking we can go out and tell other countries what to do and how to behave.

      I got some flak last week over something I wrote about how the Biden couldn't force Israel to end the genocide even if he wanted to. My wife was arguing that Biden does have the power, at least to force a ceasefire, given the enormous amount of aid the US provides Israel. I allowed that might work, but hasn't been tested (and won't) because Biden lacks the understanding and willpower to apply such leverage. My wife added that he lacks the morals, which is true, but I've grown weary of moralizing over foreign policy. But my point wasn't that such pressure couldn't work. It was that it's not guaranteed to work, because Netanyahu could hold firm, accepting the loss of support, and doubling down. We know from bitter experience that even maximal sanctions can be resisted (e.g., North Korea), and Israel has both the wherewithal and the psychology to do just that.

      Or so we should assume, and respect. As far as I'm concerned, the only escalation possible, direct war, is an option off the table. On the other hand, we don't know that Israel would take such extreme measures in resisting sanctions. They are, for the most part, rational people, who can be expected to carefully weigh their options, balancing costs against benefits, not least those of their own political careers. A big part of Netanyahu's political capital is the perception that he can wrap the Americans around his little finger, which could make him vulnerable to pushback -- sure, not from a pushover like Biden (or Trump), but perhaps from someone with a clear idea what they want. (Whether Harris is such a person remains to be seen. Obama never quite got ahead of Netanyahu.)

  • Ishaan Tharoor: [09-04] Netanyahu still wants more war: "The Israeli leader's critics argue he would rather prolong the war to assuage his far-right allies (and keep hold of power) than clinch a deal that stops hostilities and frees the remaining hostages." His critics are right, of course, but his friends would probably tell you the same thing. Where one might quibble is in his motivation: his odds of staying in power don't change much one way or the other, but what he mostly wants to do is to see how much war he can get away with -- before Biden gets disgusted and pulls the plug, before his coalition cracks up and forces a new election. Worst case scenario, he goes back to the people, campaigning on his defiance of the lily-livered turncoats who tried to derail his path to absolute victory.

  • Jonah Valdez: [09-06] Israel just killed another American in the West Bank. Will the US ever respond? "Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a human rights activist, was protesting an illegal West Bank settlement when she was reportedly shot in the head by Israeli soldiers."

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-04] Trump's biggest fans aren't who you think: "A new book shows how people are getting the right's class appeal all wrong." The book is Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild (whose 2016 book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, got a lot of attention after Trump's win as "a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump" -- the other book from back then that was often cited alongside it was JD Vance's much discredited Hillbilly Elegy). As revelations go, this -- that Trump does best among "the elite of the left-behind" -- doesn't strike me as a very big one. The more common term for many in that demographic is "asshole," and sure, Trump's their guy. (To be clear, supporting Trump doesn't make you an asshole, but being an asshole makes you much more likely to rally for Trump.)

  • Sidney Blumenthal: [09-04] Donald Trump is deeply threatened by Kamala Harris -- and desperately flailing.

  • Kevin T Dugan: Trump bombs his big speech debuting Elon Musk's commission.

  • Tom Engelhardt: [09-03] Trumptopia and beyond: "Is reality the biggest fiction of all today?"

  • Margaret Hartmann: The highs and lows from Trump's lazy new coffee table book: "From the glaring errors to the debunked gossip about Castro and Trudeau, Save America is a dizzying semi-literary adventure."

  • Sarah Jones:

  • Jerelle Kraus: [09-06] Two and a half hours alone with Nixon, the anti-Trump.

  • Nia Prater: Trump won't be sentenced before election day: "Juan Merchan, the presiding judge, ruled that Trump's sentencing hearing will be moved to November 26, weeks after the general election."

  • Robert Wright: [09-26] Is Trump a peacenik? No, but if you're worried that Biden (now Harris) is a bit too fond of war, he says a vote for him will save you from WWIII. And given that American politicians of both parties have long and ignominious histories of lying about wanting peace while blundering into war, and given how little reliable information there is about either, there may be enough gullible but concerned people to tilt the election. Wright reviews some of the contradictions here, and there are much more that could be considered.

    I've been worried about just this prospect all along, and I remain worried. I don't have time to explain all the nuances, but very briefly, Biden has done a very bad job of managing US foreign affairs, failing to make any progress dealing with a number of very manageable hostilities (North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, many others) while letting two crises (Ukraine, Gaza) drag into prolonged wars that he seemingly has no interest in ever resolving (at least he doesn't seem to be putting in any effort). The only good thing you can say about his handling of Afghanistan is that he dodged the worst possible option, which was to stick around and keep losing. And while he's made money for the arms and oil industries, both have made the world a much more dangerous place. And then there's China -- do we really need to go there?

    One might reasonably think that anyone could have done a better job than Biden has done, but we actually know one person who had every same opportunity, and made them all worse: Donald Trump, the president before Biden. Is there any reason to think that Trump might do better with a second chance? The plus side is that he may be more wary this time of relying on the "deep state" advisers who steered him so badly. (Biden, too, was plagued by their advice, but he seemed to be more in tune with it -- the only changes Biden made in US foreign policy were to reverse Trump's occasional unorthodox lapses, especially what he viewed as softness on Russia.)

    On the other hand, Trump brings a unique set of disturbing personal characteristics to the job: he cares more about perception than reality; he wants to be seen as very tough, but he's really just a whiney bitch; he's majorly ignorant, and incoherent on top of that; he's impetuous (but he can usually be talked down, because he rarely has any reasons for what he wants to do); he's vain and narcissistic; he has no empathy with people he meets, so has no idea how to relate with them (e.g., to negotiate any kind of agreement); he has no sympathy for other people, so he has no cares for anything wrong that could happen; he has a weird fascination with using nuclear weapons, so that's one of the things he often has to be talked down from; I know I already said that he's ignorant and implied that he's clueless, but he's also pretty stupid about how most things in the modern world actually work. He does, however, have a keen interest in graft, and a passing admiration for other right-wing demagogues, if only because he admires their art and sees them as his peers. About the only thing I can see as a positive is that he doesn't seem to feel any personal need for war to prove his masculinity -- for that he's satisfied abusing women.

    • Daniel Larison: [09-03] Trump doesn't oppose endless wars: "If it were anyone other than Trump taking these positions, his own supporters would be denouncing him as a neocon."

  • Steve M: [09-08] In addition to "sanewashing," can we talk about "reality-washing"? Various bits quoting Donald Trump, summed up in the end:

    I still say Trump isn't crazy or suffering significant dementia. He's just beginning to realize that he can tell any lie, no matter how divorced from reality it is, and no one will say that his lies are categorically different from ordinary political lies. To the media, there's no difference between Trump saying schools are forcibly performing gender reassignment surgery on children and Tim Walz saying that he and his wife conceived their children using in vitro fertilization when they really used intra-uterine insemination. A lie is a lie! Nothing to see here, folks!

    Maybe the press has a sense of futility about fact-checking Trump -- it's never stopped him from insisting that the 2020 election was rigged, so why bother? And fact checking clearly can't kill other Republican Big Lies -- that Democrats support abortion after birth, or that entire cities were burned to the ground during the George Floyd protests in 2020. (Many Republicans other than Trump tell these lies and get away with them.)

    If we continue to let Trump lie this brazenly without making the sheer magnitude of the lies a story, we run the risk that he'll become president and indict enemies or call out troops on disfavored groups based entirely on fictional scenarios. Once that happens, the press might finally tell us that he's the worst-ever purveyor of Big Lies, but it could be too late by then.

    Also see his earlier post, on a point I also recall making:

Vance, And other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Jack Hunter: [08-26] Harris' aversion to talks with dictators is more Bush than Obama: "Negotiating with adversaries is not 'cozying up to tyrants' as she suggested in her DNC speech."

  • Joshua Keating: [09-06] The guessing game over Kamala Harris's foreign policy: "Nobody knows."

  • Robert Kuttner: [09-09] Kamala's capital capitulation: "The money is not that huge, but the optics are terrible."

  • Eric Levitz: [09-05] Harris is swimming in cash -- but Democrats may still have a fundraising problem: "Democratic donors are underinvesting in state legislative races, where money goes a lot further." This has been a persistent problem, especially when Clinton and Obama used the Democratic Party as a personal piggy bank, while letting Democratic majorities in Congress go under. This happens because Democratic donors have very different priorities than Democratic voters, and may even prefer to sandbag policies that Democratic majorities would pass if they had the numbers. Republicans, on the other hand, work much harder to get their candidates elected down ballot, because they need to pass laws to implement their regressive agenda.

  • Nicole Narea/Sean Collins: [09-06] Will Harris's massive fundraising spree actually help her? The chart here shows that both candidates combined raised almost twice as much money in 2020 as in 2016 ($1774M vs. $896M). As Jeffrey St Clair pointed out (article below), 2020 was the first year in many when the winner got more votes than the number of eligible voters who didn't vote, so one correlation seems to be that more money means more voter participation (although the returns there are pretty slim). Chart also shows that Trump more than doubled his fundraising in 2020 over 2016. I was thinking that shows the value of incumbency, but Obama's raised almost exactly the same in 2012 and 2008.

  • Adam Wren/Megan Messerly: [09-09] Why the 'one-two punch' of Liz and Dick Cheney backing Harris matters: Evidently they have their own PACs, so they can back up their votes with some money. Whether they have any credibility with anyone who wasn't already a "never Trumper" isn't very likely. Dick Cheney ended his VP term with the lowest approval numbers ever (9% is the number I remember). Liz Cheney has some fawning admirers among the DC press core (including Joan Walsh?). But it's quite possible that the net change will be negative. By far the biggest liability Biden (and now Harris) had was their involvement in senseless foreign wars -- which they seem completely powerless to do anything to stop -- and here they're picking up endorsements from bona fide super-hawks. That's a very bad look.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Perry Bacon Jr.: [09-03] What a conference for the left just revealed about November: "The war in Gaza and the threat of another Trump presidency pulled democratic socialists in opposite directions at a post-convention meeting in Chicago." Look, life can be frustrating on the left. You've managed to figure out some basic truths about how the world works, and how for most people it could work better, but one major group of people keep telling you that your proposals, which you see as just plain common sense, are impossible dreams, that instead you have to not just limit yourself to corporate compromises but smile when you vote for the Democrats who broker those deals (or just let them wither and die) -- and be assured that if you don't vote for them, if you even criticize them at inopportune times, they will blame all their failures on you. Then there's that other major group of people who simply hate you for even suggesting that any conscious change is possible let alone desirable, even though those people have consistently pursued their own self-interests in ways that have drastically altered the world, with hardly any regard for the vast harm they have caused all around the world.

    These major groups dominate the political parties that limit our choices in what passes for democracy in America: the Democrats, who are leery and dismissive of the left, and the Republicans, whose fear and loathing is so unbounded we often recognize them as Fascists. (Fascism is sometimes dignified as an ideology, but for leftists, the telltale sign is sensing that someone wants to kill you.) November matters because that's the next big election, a rare opportunity for most people (even leftists) to vote for one of the two major parties' vetted candidates. Most of us feel the need to participate, on principle for democracy, but also because we usually have a pretty good idea which candidate is the worst -- it may be hard to vote for some ideal, but we shouldn't squander the opportunity to vote down someone truly malignant. But that's just one moment: too glaring to ignore, not least because so many people invest so much hope in its outcome. I can identify with one leftist quote here: "Presidential elections, the Democrats specifically, have a way of sucking all life out of any movement." In November, winners will celebrate, losers complain, but leftists (and lobbyists) can only go back to work.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists and the economy:

Ukraine and Russia:

The World and/or America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Marty A Bullis: [08-12] MAGA to MAGNA: "True greatness -- magnanimity -- is rooted in giving our selves away, not attempting to make ourselves great again." Philosophy professor, launched this newsletter a month ago, evidently he's a friend of a friend, deep enough I decided not to bury it in the "laugh and cry" section under Donald Trump's name. I'm afraid I lost my interest in all things great long ago, so it's hard for me to take "make America great" as anything other than sardonic conceit. For starters, it always conjured up the Bill Moyers story of how he suggested calling Lyndon Johnson's social programs "the good society," but Johnson insisted on "great." A big chunk of the problem is that very little of what people claim as great is really much good. And Hillary Clinton's counterpoint, that "America has always been great," was really unhelpful (but, I supose, revelatory). What kind of person even aspires to greatness? Especially after models like these.

    Bullis does us a service in describing how the phrase works, and in breaking it down to five "core values" (which I might add are not tautological, but are empirically derived from observation of the people we've come to shorthand as "MAGA"):

    "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) is the central value-phrase Trump uses to activate our instinct for greatness. MAGA stimulates a simultaneous sense of loss for, and desire to work and fight to regain some part of our past -- whether real or imagined. The phrase is generic in a way that it can be all things to all people. Who hasn't experienced loss? And who would not want to get something valuable back? Trump for his part had the brilliant (and self-serving) idea to trademark and market this motivational phrase, and then turn it into a repetitive rallying cry to channel our fears and hopes for his benefit.

    I will be highlighting five core MAGA values that play on these fears and hopes, bringing harm in their path. The list is not meant to be exhaustive of the values driving negative actions in the MAGA-sphere, and I am not the first to discuss them. My goal is, however, to show how these values can be redirected in ways that will allow us to be authentically great. The five MAGA values are: 1) insular self-interest; 2) cultural homogenizing; 3) social wall building; 4) patriotic ranting; and 5) self-serving aggression. Like Trump, these values are attractive to many people.

    His emphasis. He then spoils the mood with his next sentence: "But I will argue that there are better and truly authentic value-paths to greatness." He really needs a better destination, and not just because "greatness" has been spoiled. (I don't have a counterproposal, but the first word that popped into mind was "satori.) Looks like he at least has his path plotted out, with a first section here and the promise of more to come:

    1. Unselfing America: Embracing service rather than self-interest
    2. Unhomogenizing America: Embracing diversity as our identity
    3. Unwalling America: Embracing our immigrant status rather than isolation
    4. Unranting America: Embracing gracious discourse rather than hateful speech
    5. Unaggressing America: Embracing nonviolence rather than picking a fight
    6. Stepping out in authentic greatness

    Mostly good themes, so good luck with that. Maybe something good can come out of "greatness" after all. But don't get me started on "authenticity," a concept I like even less than "greatness."

  • Ted Chiang: [08-31] Why A.I. isn't going to make art: "To create a novel or a painting, an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence." I was directed to this piece by a tweet, which quoted this nugget:

    The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

  • Gabor Maté: [09-06] We each have a Nazi in us. We need to understand the psychological roots of authoritarianism: I don't have any specific insight into this question, other than my experience that every argument ever made constructed along these lines has been complete and utter horseshit -- the most obvious examples being blatantly racist, or closely analogous.

    Neuroimaging studies have shown that the amygdala, the tiny almond-shaped brain structure that mediates fear, is larger in people with more rightwing views. It is more active in those favoring strong protective authority and harboring a suspicion of outsiders and of people who are different.

    I have a pretty low opinion of right-wingers, but I'm pretty sure the only ones "born that way" are explicable in terms of class acculturation, and even if tightly held are not locked in.

  • Caitlin PenzeyMoog: [09-04] Organize your kitchen like a chef, not an influencer. Well, this is the sort of soft "lifetyle" feature I often bother to read, and I kept the link for future reference (partly because I didn't know what a "cambro" was, although I have some cheaper alternatives). I have the largest refrigerator I could find, and I keep it jammed, for better or worse, so managing it (as opposed to presenting it as a gallery) is something often on my mind.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-06] Roaming Charges: Ain't that America, something to see, baby? Starts off with the latest school shooting, then gives you some Xmas cards from our "family values" Republicans. After that, the usual smorgasbord.

  • Jason Stanley: [09-05] Why fascists hate universities: "Authoritarians and would-be authoritarians are only too aware that universities are primary sites of critique and dissent." Mostly on Bangladesh and India, but of more general interest. Stanley has a recent book: Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, following up on his previous books: How Propaganda Works (2015), and How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018).

  • Barry Yourgrau: [09-03] Lessons of a Weimar anti-fascist in Palestine: "After my father fled Nazi Germany in 1933, he witnessed a toxic new nationalism rising among Jews in Palestine -- and was silenced for trying to warn of its dangers."

Obituaries

Books

Chatter

  • Zachary D Carter: [09-06] [Responding to Leah Greenberg, writing on Vance: I can't get over how disrespectful this is. It's the answer of someone who has never seriously considered any aspect of how care policy works, because he believes -- but knows better than to say out loud -- that women should be home taking care of the kids.]

    When you did get past the gender hang-ups there's nothing here except warmed over occupational licensing reform stuff from the 60s and 70s. These guys say they want to represent working families but they have no interest in how working families live.

    To the extent there is a policy argument here, Vance is saying we should lower daycare costs by paying lowering pay for childcare. If your solution to an economic problem is "lower wages," you aren't interested in supporting working families.

  • Stephen Walt: [09-05] By now it is clear that there is nothing #Netanyahu could do or say that would lead @SecBlinken to withhold U.S. support. A more ineffectual approach to diplomacy is hard to imagine, and the failure to achieve any positive results is entirely predictable. [Comments follow:]

    • Blairja: [09-05] The entire Biden Administration simply does not know how to negotiate. The entirety of US current foreign policy is purely the result of this basic inability to negotiate. No negotiations = endless support for war. The ONLY way conflicts ever end is with negotiation.

    • Jean-Noël: [09-05] It is clear that the Biden administration and Blinken in particular are completely under the thumb of Netanyahu. They all follow Biden's example of unconditional support, whatever humiliation Netanyahu inflicts to them over and over again. We are the laughing stock of the world.

    [Given the company they're joining, it's a bit surprising that anyone bothers to offer intelligent commentary. I've understood all along that the longer this war continues, the more people who are appalled by it may turn to antisemitic tropes. Most of the people I read are careful not to fall into that trap, but there's quite a bit of it in the commentary here -- most personal about Blinken (e.g., "Blinken is effectual, he's just not playing for our team"), although there was also a "Jews run America." Still, by far the most offensive comment was "Hamas supporter," followed by a cartoon showing Netanyahu and someone labeled Hamas holding a child wrapped in a suicide vest and a paper that reads "Demands: Death to all Jews," with Blinken in the middle saying, "Could you at least meet him half way?"]

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): Plitnick ("the genocide in Gaza is as American as it is Israeli"), Trump, music.

Initial count: 154 links, 10515 words (13320 total)

Current count: 167 links, 11084 words (14075 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, September 2, 2024

Music Week

September archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 42905 [42869] rated (+36), 30 [34] unrated (-4).

Yesterday's Speaking of Which slacked off a bit, only citing 141 links, less than half of the previous week's 290 (although the word count only dropped by 28%, as I got off on more tangents; also last week included an extra day plus extra adds, whereas this one appeared on schedule, and I haven't tallied up what little I've added since).

Music Week is also coming in a day short. Rating count got a boost as my dive into Houston Person's old records carried over from last week, and led me to a new one. Also the A-list bounced back after only one record each in three of the last four weeks (but 7 for the week of August 20. Three of those came from promos I had been sitting on until their late August release dates. (An extra day would have added Patricia Brennan's Breaking Stretch, but that's banked for next week.)

I'm still updating the 2024 Jazz list, which has already reached a ridiculous A-list length (70+3 new music, 16+1 old music). I haven't sorted out the Non-Jazz yet, but at this point it's unlikely that I have half as many albums in any subdivision. Four pop records I tried I played multiple times before leaving them in the B+ ranks: Sabrina Carpenter, Lainey Wilson, Buoys, Magdalena Bay. The latter's Mercurial World was one of my favorite records of 2021, but only hints at that level toward the end. Same fate seems likely for Beebadoobee's This Is How Tomorrow Moves next week, but there's a lot to like there.

I started to write up a "to do" list in my Aug. 30 notebook entry, and hope to get back to it soon. I did cross a couple items off today already: I updated and did the indexing for August Streamnotes. I was surprised to find I have more patience for that kind of work early in the day.

Joan Didion's Where I was From is the first (of three) books I picked up in the brick-and-mortar bookstore last week. I've never read her fiction, but have read two books of political reporting: Political Fictions (2002), and Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11 (2003), by which time she was a recovering Republican. Less of a memoir than I expected, but interesting as history, even as drawn from novels. I have more typical political books "on the nightstand" (Zack Beauchamp, Danielle Allen, Henry Farrell/Abraham Newman), but figured I could use a break.

New records reviewed this week:

The Buoys: Lustre (2024, Sony): Australian indie rock band, Zoe Catterall the lead singer and only constant member since 2016. This seems to be their first album, following several EPs (as far back as 2017). On first play, they're about as good as a dozen similar bands going back at least to the Go-Gos in the early 1980s. B+(***) [sp]

Bex Burch: There Is Only Love and Fear (2023, International Anthem): Percussionist, from London, but ranges far and wide (Ghana and Berlin are mentioned), makes her own instruments, calls this first album "messy minimalism." It's messy, but that's where the charm emerges. A- [sp]

Gunhild Carling: Jazz Is My Lifestyle! (2024, Jazz Art): Jazz singer-songwriter from Sweden, started in her cornetist father's trad-oriented big band, also plays trombone, likes it bold and brassy. Group credit could be expanded "Big Band with Strings" (Prague Strings Chamber Orchestra). B+(***) [cd]

Sabrina Carpenter: Short n' Sweet (2024, Island): This month's pop sensation, started posting YouTube videos when she was 10, became a Disney teen actor, first album at 16, fourth at 25. Slick, or sleek, took me a while, and I'm still not there, not that I quarrel with "refreshingly light" or "cheeky, clever, and effortlessly executed." B+(***) [sp]

Bill Charlap Trio: And Then Again (2024, Blue Note): Mainstream pianist, albums started on Criss Cross in 1995, moved to Blue Note in 2000. Trio with Peter Washington (bass) and Kenny Washington (drums) formed in 1997, their boast as "one of the great working jazz groups of our day" well earned. Eight standards, with Barron, Monk, and Brubeck from the jazz side, the show tunes even more impeccable. B+(***) [sp]

Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal (2024, Top Dawg/Capitol): Rapper Jaylah Hickman, third mixtape, has a couple EPs. B+(**) [sp]

Girl in Red: I'm Doing It Again Baby! (2024, Columbia): Norwegian indie pop singer-songwriter Marie Ulven Ringheim, second album after a couple EPs, short at 27:51 (10 songs). B+(**) [sp]

The Haas Company [Featuring Frank Gambale]: Vol. 2: Celestial Latitude (2024, Psychiatric): Drummer Steve Haas, credits keyboardist Pete Drungle as the fusion group's musical director, with Gambale the featured guest guitarist (replacing Andy Timmons from Vol. 1, an improvement). B+(**) [cd]

Javon Jackson/Nikki Giovanni: Javon & Nikki Go to the Movies (2024, Solid Jackson/Palmetto): Tenor saxophonist, started with Art Blakey 1987-90, led his first album on Criss Cross in 1991, moved to Blue Note 1994-99, then to Palmetto through 2008. He's been much less prominent since then, mostly on his own label, but got some notice in 2022 for his album with the famed poet (22 years his senior). They return here with a mixed concept album. She's featured on three tracks, spread out to make room for the movie-themed standards sung superbly by Nicole Zuraitis, lavishly burnished with Jackson's saxophone. A- [cd]

Magdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk (2024, Mom + Pop): Synthpop duo, Mica Tenenbaum (vocals) and Matthew Lewin (arrangements), with lots of strings and brass. I thought their first album was terrific, but this one is less immediately appealing. B+(**) [sp]

Mavi: Shadowbox (2024, Mavi 4 Mayor Music): Rapper Omavi Ammu Minder, grew up in Charlotte, NC; third album since 2019. B+(**) [sp]

Nicole Mitchell and Ballaké Sissoko: Bamako Chicago Sound System (2017 [2024], FPE): The AACM flautist hosts the Malian kora player and his cohort, most notably Fassery Diabaté (balafon) and Fatim Kouyaté (vocals), for a session that's much more theirs than hers, even with backing from additional jazz musicians Jeff Parker (guitar), Joshua Abrams (bass), and JoVia Armstrong (percussion). This is pretty delightful. A- [sp]

Houston Person/Peter Beets: Live in Holland: Houston Person Meets Peter Beets Trio (2024, Maxanter): I get nervous when I see a live album without the recording date, especially when the star up around 89. His first notes here sound as strong as ever, but that was also true of his eature turn in Emmet Cohen's Master Legacy Series Volume 5, which I have reliably dated to 2023. Beets is a Dutch pianist I should probably learn more about: he has several albums on Criss Cross (Chopin Meets the Blues is one on a recurring theme), other albums back to 1997, ranging from Concertgebouw to an ICP quartet with Han Bennink, with an Oscar Peterson tribute along the way. Beets is in Peterson mode here. Norman Granz would love this. A- [sp]

Catherine Russell/Sean Mason: My Ideal (2023 [2024], Dot Time): Standards singer, eighth album since 2006, had a famous father but their lives only overlapped seven years, with a great distance between his early peak in the late 1920s and her late emergence (first album at 50). Backed with just piano here, a young pianist steeped in blues and stride, which makes her sound rather like Bessie Smith. (I'm assuming that the August 2003 recording date is a typo.) A- [cd]

Taliba Safiya: Black Magic (2024, self-released, EP): Singer-songwriter from Memphis, some rhythm, more blues, first release, seven songs, 19:17. B+(*) [sp]

Sault: Acts of Faith (2024, Forever Living Originals): British r&b group, members mysterious, eleventh album since 2019, one track of 32:09. Their best stuff reminds me of Chic. The rest reminds me they're not as good as Chic. B+(*) [yt]

Philip Weberndoerfer: Tides (2023 [2024], Shifting Paradigm): Guitarist from Germany, 26, based in New York, seems to be his first album, seven originals plus two covers, backed by bass and drums, with saxophonist Dayna Stephens joining on five tracks. Billed as "a sonic portrayal of the human condition," I found it reassuringly pleasant. B+(**) [cd]

Lainey Wilson: Whirlwind (2024, BBR): Country singer-songwriter, fifth album since 2014, sounds great at first, upbeat, one could even say rocks out. B+(***) [sp]

Miguel Zenón: Golden City (2023 [2024], Miel Music): Alto saxophonist, from Puerto Rico, has explored his roots music extensively, but is mostly a postbop guy, with an Ornette Coleman tribute on his résumé. Some Latin tinge here (but not much, or at least not the main point), in an expansive set of pieces commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation and SFJAZZ, themed for San Francisco, performed by an all-star nonet that hits all the bases. A- [cd]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Ashtyn Barbaree: Debut EP (2018, self-released, EP): Country/Americana Singer-songwriter from Fayetteville, plays ukulele and guitar, voice somewhat quirky, backed with guitar, piano, bass, and drums, for six songs, 19:31. Followed up with a 2022 album, and has a new one coming out late October. B+(*) [bc]

Ashtyn Barbaree: Better Luck Next Time (2022, self-released): First album (9 songs, 29:10), after an EP (2018) and a couple of singles. Nice enough, but little stands out. B+(*) [bc]

Houston Person: Broken Windows, Empty Hallways (1972 [2004], Prestige): The tenor saxophonist's tenth album on Prestige, a fairly large group arranged and conducted by Billy Ver Planck, with Cedar Walton on piano and Ernie Hayes on organ. Reissue adds a second album from the same sessions, originally released as Sweet Buns & Barbeque. Both feature recent rock tunes, the first starts with Randy Newman and moves on to "Mr. Bojangles" and "Imagine" before slipping in a Monk and an original; the second kicks off with a swell "A Song for You" and winds up funky. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: A Little Houston on the Side (1977-94 [1999], 32 Jazz): Compiled from the tenor saxophonist's Muse albums, not so much his as the occasions where he appeared on others' albums. Discogs has artist credits, and undated source albums (some from other 32 Jazz comps with their own lapses), so so this could really use better documentation. Two Etta Jones vocals, one from Charles Brown. He is solid as ever. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: My Romance (1998, HighNote): Same quartet, but slower, as Person's evolving into one of the great ballad saxophonists. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Soft Lights (1999, HighNote): Grady Tate takes over on drums, and guitarist Russell Malone joins in -- adding another dimension, where more saxophone might have been better. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: In a Sentimental Mood (2000, HighNote): Quartet with Stan Hope (piano), George Kaye (bass), and Chip White (drums), playing well-worn standards. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Blue Velvet (2001, HighNote): Quartet with Richard Wyands (piano), Ray Drummond (bass), and Grady Tate (drums), for another luscious batch of standards. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person With Ron Carter: Dialogues (2000 [2002], HighNote): Tenor sax and bass duo, a third album after two on Muse: Something in Common (1990), and Now's the Time (1993). B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Sentimental Journey (2002, HighNote): Another very nice set of standards, a little more upbeat, backed by Richard Wyands (piano), Peter Washington (bass), and Grady Tate (drums), with guitarist Russell Malone in on four (of nine) tracks. B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Social Call (2003, HighNote): Another batch of standards, mostly drawing on jazz composers -- leads off with title piece by Gigi Gryce, followed by Tadd Dameron, Horace Silver, and Benny Carter, with Cedar Walton and "Daydream" coming later. Quintet with Stan Hope (piano), Paul Bollenbeck (guitgar), Per-Ola Gadd (bass), and Chip White (drums). He's been so consistently superb, and so casual about it, that it's picking any album as a breakthrough is arbitrary. But no ballad master has ever offered a better "Bewitched," and that's just one example. Bollenback is an especially nice fit. By the way, Person's next album, To Etta With Love, is even better. A- [sp]

Houston Person: The Melody Lingers On (2014, HighNote): I heard nearly all of his albums from 2004's To Etta With Love on in real time, but this one slipped by. Quintet with Lafayette Harris (piano), Steve Nelson (vibes), Ray Drummond (bass), and Lewis Nash (drums). B+(***) [sp]

Houston Person: Something Personal (2015, HighNote): Another easy one, with Nelson (vibes) again, John Di Martino (piano), James Chirillo (guitar 4/10 tracks), Drummond and Nash, the title song the only original. B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Rain or Shine (2017, HighNote): Past 80, his duo album with Ron Carter, Chemistry, was one of my top albums in 2016. Here he augments his quartet -- Lafayette Harris (piano), Matthew Parish (bass), Vincent Ector (drums) -- with guitar (Rodney Jones on 8/9 cuts) and cornet (Warren Vache on 5). B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Ashtyn Barbaree: Sent Through the Ceiling (Artists 3 60) [10-25]
  • Anne Sajdera: It's Here (Bijuri) [09-20]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Sunday, September 1, 2024

Speaking of Which

I opened this file about noon, Wednesday, August 28. First thing I did was to revise the template. Most obvious thing was to move the VP candidates (plus Biden) into the "and other D/R" sections. Also some minor rephrasing. The three Israel sections overlap some, but reflect different focuses: the first focuses on what Israel does directly, but also includes items on Israel's domestic politics; the second focuses on Israel's relationship to the US, and what American political elites think and do about Israel; the third focuses on the part of Israel's propaganda war directed at others, and their responses to the atrocities (the word "genocide" comes up here). Further subdivisions are possible, as is overlap, and sometimes I just try to keep articles by single authors together. I tend to put pieces on Israel's provocations with Lebanon, Iran, and their so-called proxies into the second section, as my view is that Israel's cultivation of regional enemies is mostly geared toward keeping the Americans looking at Iran and away from Gaza and the West Bank.

Ukraine and Russia still seems to need their own section, but the broader context is the notion of America as imperial hegemon, even if in fact it's defined more as an arms market where loyal customers are counted as allies, and anyone who goes DIY and/or shops on the black market is regarded as an enemy. For now, I'm putting pieces on the arms cartel in the World section, along with whatever scraps of world news that don't slot directly under Israel or Ukraine/Russia. In theory, I should be covering news that has nothing to do with America's imperial ego, but few such stories reach my attention. So, for now this remains a grab bag.

Three topical sections -- law, climate/environment, economy -- cover most of what crops up domestically (sometimes overflowing). "Other stories" is a catch all, from which I've broken out certain recurrent themes, which may on occasion be empty.

Sunday, early afternoon, eager to get to a delayed breakfast. With 82 links, 7415 words, this is way less than last week's 290 link, 15528 word monstrosity. And already I'm dead tired, disgusted, and just want to get it over with, so today's plan is to just go through the motions, and fuck it. In essence, I feel like I already know everything I need to know, at least about the 2024 elections, where we will try to fend off the grave peril of wrong-headed Republicans with the vague hopes of naïve and uncertain Democrats. At this point, further research and reporting is only likely to show that the Republicans are even worse than imagined, and also that the Democrats aren't quite as good as we hoped. Even that can be readily intuited from what we already know -- not to totally dismiss the "devil in the details," which I'm pretty sure will be quite appalling.

At this point, I'd much rather return to the woefully incomplete "to do" list I started in my August 30 notebook entry. At least there are some tasks on that list that I can reasonably expect to accomplish -- some within days, more in months, some that will (like so much else) inevitably slip through the cracks. Today's little bit of self-realization is that I'm basically an engineer: I deal with things by making plans to change them by practical measures in desirable directions.

Finally posted this after midnight. Link count way down this week, but word count not so much. Uncertain at this point how much (little) I managed to cover, but enough for now. Anything extra added on Monday will be flagged.

Monday evening: did add a few bits here and there, but nothing major.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Michael Arria: [08-29] 'I think we've reached a tipping point': James Zogby on Uncommitted and the DNC: "James Zogby speaks to Mondoweiss about the DNC's snub of the Uncommitted movement, and what it will take for Washington to shift on Palestine."

  • Michael Crowley/Eric Schmitt/Edward Wong: [08-29] Inside the frantic US efforts to contain a Mideast disaster: "A bigger disaster may have been avoided, even as the region continues to teeter on the brink of wider war."

  • Daniel DeCamp: [08-28] Biden was told Gaza pier would undermine efforts to get Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. Source here is:

  • Joe Gill: [08-23] Kamala Harris's speech killed any hope she would end the Gaza genocide. Only if you hoped that she would use the bully pulpit provided by her nomination to publicly oppose what Israel is doing. Regardless of her feelings, I don't see any political advantage in her breaking with Biden and/or Israel, while to do so could invite peril. She is, after all, running a popular front campaign against Donald Trump, who is clearly an even worse option if you style yourself as "pro-Palestinian," so her present course doesn't hurt her much there. On the other hand, she needs to hold onto "pro-Israel" donors, many with long ties to the Democratic Party but so singly focused on Israel that they could well defect to Trump.

    There is still some reason to hope that when she is free to make policy, and freed of the obligation to follow Biden, that she will do a better job of restraining Netanyahu than Biden has done. There is some evidence to support this hope -- she has been more disciplined than Biden in calling for ceasefire, and she has been more credible in recognizing the harm done to Palestinians -- as well as the reasoning revealed in the logic of her campaign. What's much harder to gauge is how much she could (and should) influence Israel policy as vice-president. I could only speculate on that, and I don't want to, other than to point out that only Israel (which right now, and for the foreseeable future, means Netanyahu) can stop the genocide, and really needs to change much more.

    Even as president, the only thing Harris could do would be to tip Netanyahu's cost-benefit analysis toward less egregious policies (which could still be pretty awful). Even if Harris were tempted to burn all of her good will with Israel and institute maximum-level sanctions, Israelis are at least as likely to respond by hunkering down like North Korea as by reforming like South Africa -- and with their arsenal and in confirmation of their paranoia, they could turn more militant than North Korea.

    I just got a refresher course on Bush's Iraq war propaganda from reading Lapham's Age of Folly, and could easily imagine recycling it to gin up a regime change operation in Israel, but nobody's going to do it: the architects of that folly were then-and-now staunch fans of Israel, while those who thought better (or who painfully learned their lesson) are likely to point out that a "splendid little war" against Israel can go wrong in many more ways than the Iraq one did -- for one thing, Israel actually has WMD; also, while that line about "Saddam gassing his own people" hit its target, hardly anyone thinks to think of Palestinians as Israel's "own people" -- the dehumanization is far too complete for that.

    Also on Harris and Israel (allowing me to compartmentalize and exclude these articles from her section):

    • While I was writing the [PS] on Risen, I sketched out some "unsolicited advice" I would give the Harris campaign, if I could possibly see any way to get the message through. (Down there, I talk a bit about why I've never been able to do anything like that, then went off on another tangent where I could have just offered a parade of failing examples.) Anyhow, makes more sense to move that comment up here (although by the time I post this it will probably be redundant to other comments in this section.

    Anyhow, my advice to the Harris campaign is this:

    When asked about Gaza, don't start with your rote mantra about "Israel's right to defend itself." Anyone who cares has already heard that a million times already and will instantly turn you off and never credit another word you way. What you have to start with is acknowledgement of the immense suffering the war has caused, to both sides if you really must (and you don't really have to get into numbers here), and insist that the war has to stop, as soon as possible. You can mention the hostages at this point, if you really must, but understand that the hostages were taken to negotiate a ceasefire, not for prisoner swaps. End the war, and the hostages (what few are left; like Trump, Netanyahu only admires those who didn't allow themselves to be captured) will be freed (while there will still be thousands of Palestinians in Israel's concentration camps; even if they have to replenish them, they're a renewable resource). And then, after stressing the importance of peace, and human rights, and dignity and security for all (sure, both-sides this, but make sure you don't slight the Palestinians), then segue to how you're working around the clock with Israel to make peace happen, on terms, of course, that fully take into account Israel's security and well-being (including, if you really must, its much-abused "right to self-defense").

    I'm not even asking her to say anything different from what she's already saying. Just put it in a different order, so it gets heard not just by pro-Israel donors but by genuinely concerned Americans (the donors are smart enough to wait to the end for their reassurance; they've been speaking in code for aeons now). Also, Harris has a bit of unique value-added here. I think most people realize that Israel is completely in charge of their war: they started it (long before Oct. 7, which was merely a hiccup they decided to magnify), and they alone can end it, which they will only when they decide they've had enough, that it serves no further purpose.

    For nearly everyone else, all you can do is speak up, bear witness, demonstrate, maybe vote (but almost never directly), all of which is ultimately directed at making Israeli leaders think better, whether through conscience or through self-interested cost-benefit analysis (which is what BDS aims at). We've spent a lot of energy trying to get Biden, Harris, other prominent Democrats to do what we've been doing, which is to speak out, but they are actually very different from us: they don't have to speak out, because they're close enough to speak to, if not the right people, at least to people closer to the right people, to make their appeals personal.

    Unfortunately, the few people in that position are severely compromised, but their loyalty should earned them the right to a hearing. And in some cases, they have some power to tip that cost-benefit analysis. Harris is already in that general orbit, which is part of the reason why she has to be discreet in public, in order to operate in private. We should respect that, but she should also give us some sign that we can trust her discretion. Reframing her answer does that, or at least helps. And electing her president will increase her leverage -- assuming she wants to use it.

    I think she can and will, but when she does, she will be subtle and disciplined about it. Netanyahu is a bully, someone who has taken great delight in humiliating American presidents (going back to his Wye River sleight-of-hand with Clinton, and his pre-emptive attack on Gaza between Obama's election and inauguration, but he found Trump such an easy mark that when Biden came along he found he could finally get away with being sadistic), but I'd venture a guess that she has some experience in handling his type. Still, there is no way she can simply dictate terms. The best she can do is to look for tolerable compromises, which she's more likely to find and sell by being sympathetic to Israel than by becoming a clear-headed critic of Zionist settler-colonialism.

    That won't necessarily, or even likely, lead to good solutions, but damn near anything would be better than blank-check support for genocide -- which is where we're at, and where we're stuck, until someone in a position to do something thinks better of it. (I've spent 20+ years racking my brain for solutions that would help a bit while still being acceptable to the racist-paranoid mindset of contemporary Zionism. My "pro-Palestinian" friends hate this line of thought, but I see no other as possible, at least within any reasonable time frame.)

    Unfortunately, I fear that no one in such a position -- and we can comfortably include Kamala Harris in that sharply circumscribed circle -- is able to think better of it. They wouldn't be allowed the chance if they could. So we have every reason to be profoundly pessimistic about Israel, about America's relationship with Israel, and about the possibility that Harris might finally change course. Still, I give her slightly better odds than Trump, and with no other alternatives this cycle, I'm inclined to cut her considerable slack. But we can't stop talking about the problem, and we do need to remain aware that she is still very much a part of it.

  • Daniel Levy: [08-27] The US diplomatic strategy on Israel and Gaza is not working: Well, it never has worked. It took Ben Gurion almost six months to realize Eisenhower was serious about Israel leaving Sinai in 1956, and that was pretty much the last time any American insisted on a point. Maybe Carter's opposition to Israel's first Lebanon war -- which Reagan allowed the rerun in 1982, much to everyone's eventual embarrassment. And sure, there was some mutual make-believe, like Israel accepting the UN "land for peace" resolutions, or the nods to a "two-state solution." But from Clinton on, no one took the charades seriously. Netanyahu not only stopped playing, he took advantage of American timidity to make himself look like he's the strong one. Meanwhile, the Americans look like weak fools with no principles or even interests, while being complicit in war crimes and crimes against human rights.

  • Branko Marcetic: [08-29] Biden may be the president who kills the two-state solution: "Israel is only doing this because it has learned that there is nothing it can ever do that would make Biden cut off the weapons and military support it needs to carry on its spree of violence."

  • Taha Ozhan: [08-27] Israel is rudderless, and Washington is going down with the ship.

  • Jeremy Scahill:

    • [09-01] How the US enabled Netanyahu to sabotage a Gaza ceasefire.

    • [08-30] Israel's violent invasion of West Bank parallels the early stages of war on Gaza: UN rapporteur on Palestine. One thing to note here (and I have no idea how credible this reporting is) is:

      On Thursday, Abdel Hakim Hanini, a senior Hamas official, suggested that the group was preparing to engage in suicide bombings inside Israel, a tactic that became common during the Second Intifada, which spanned 2000-2005, but had ended almost entirely after 2006 when Hamas and other groups announced an end to the practice.

      "The resistance in the West Bank has begun changing its tactics and returning to martyrdom operations to strike at the occupation within the occupied interior," Hamas said in a statement outlining Hanini's announcement. "The resistance's change in tactics is a result of the settlers and the occupation government crossing red lines in their crimes against the Palestinian people." Hanini also called on the security forces of the Palestinian Authority to participate in a popular uprising against Israeli occupation forces and settlers.

      This is exactly what Netanyahu's right-wing allies have been hoping (or should I say agitating?) for: a panic and pretense to extend Israeli military operations and significantly increase their destructive force. One might as well call this genocide -- Israel is less concerned with counting scalps than with reducing the infrastructure that makes life viable, so that ultimately whatever Palestinians are still alive will realize that their only hope is to emigrate, emptying the land for more settlers. It would be a sad mistake for any Palestinians to invite such a savage response, but it would also be a sign of hopelessness -- a desperate resolve, once cornered, to make their menacers pay as dear a price as possible. And make no mistake, while there is no doubt that Palestinians would suffer far worse, a surge of Palestinian violence would take a toll that ordinary Israelis aren't used to. During the second intifada, Israeli casualties rose to such an extent that Israel's kill ratio sunk to around 4-to-1, as opposed to typical ratios between 10-to-1 and 100-to-1. (For comparison, the kill ratio since and including Oct. 7 is at least 30-to-1, and probably double that, yet Israel's leaders are showing no signs that their blood lust is abating.)

  • Donald Shaw/David Moore: [08-27] AIPAC officially surpasses $100 million in spending on 2024 elections.

  • Yoana Tchoukleva: [08-31] An arms embargo on Israel is not a radical idea -- it's the law: "Halting military aid to Israel is the bare minimum the U.S. can do to stop the Gaza genocide. An arms embargo is not only supported by 80% of Democratic Party voters, it is demanded by international and U.S. law."

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Alex Abad-Santos: [08-29] Your guide to the Brittany Mahomes-Donald Trump drama, such as it is: "Why everyone suddenly cares about Brittany Mahomes' politics." Everyone?

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Sarah Jones:

    • [08-30] Misogyny is about power: A pretty generic title, but filed here because the first line is: "Donald Trump's supporters in search of apparel have no shortage of options." The generalization is also true, and one can go even wider and explore the intoxication of power and how seeking to solve problems through its application is not just bad philosophy but should more properly be regarded as a form of mental illness. But back to Trump:

      By attacking Harris's gender, Trump demonstrates his own masculinity and makes himself seem more and more like the strongman that he -- and his followers -- believes the U.S. needs. Trump was the vehicle for a vengeance fantasy in 2016, and that remains true in 2024. To followers, his pursuit of raw power is a means to bully liberals and the left into submission. . . . The sexual remarks that Trump reposted this month are a way for him and his followers to put the vice-president back in her place.

      As I've observed on many occasions, the essence of conservatism is the belief that each person has a proper place, and a passion to use force to keep people there.

    • [08-28] The 'pro-life' policies hurting women: These specific examples mostly come from Arkansas, but they are part of a much wider trend. Filed here to keep the author's articles together, but also because Trump is the single person most responsible for allowing things like this to happen. Remember that in November. And don't believe anything he says to the contrary . . . or to be safe, anything he says at all.

  • Ed Kilgore:

  • Casey Michel: [09-01] Trump is making new, sketchy foreign business deals: "From Saudi Arabia to Serbia, despots are cozying up, likely in preparation for a second term." Every one of these deals is an advertisement for ending Trump's political career. If I was a TV exec, I'd hire Michael Moore to turn this story into a documentary. At this point it would be a rush job to beat the election, which would make it a public service as well as useful history. He could always redo it as a film later, especially with a happy ending: Trump loses, the business deals crash, he finally goes to jail. And if worse comes to worse, he could continue it as a series, because crooks like Trump don't just stop of their own accord. They have to be busted.

  • Ben Lefebvre: [08-30] 'Political poison': How Trump's tariffs could raise gasoline prices.

  • Chris Lehmann: [08-28] The Trump campaign is now running on pure contempt: "Both Trump and JD Vance are incapable of hiding their lack of basic humanity."

  • Shawn McCreesh: [09-01] Meandering? Off-script? Trump insists his 'weave' is oratorical genius. "Former President Donald J Trump's speeches often wander from topic to topic. He insists there is an art to stitching them all together."

  • Nicole Narea: [08-23] Does RFK Jr. dropping out of the presidential race help Trump? "The weirdest 2024 candidate endorsed Trump."

  • Nia Prater:

    • [08-27] RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are joining the Trump transition team: I noted this story last week, dismissing it with "sounds like something, but probably isn't." Here I should note that while it probably isn't, it could actually be something. Kennedy and Gabbard have a lot of traits that discredit them as presidential candidates, but the one thing they do have is pretty consistent antiwar track records, which they are not just committed to, but are eager to use against Biden and Harris, who are not exactly invulnerable to such charges. Moreover, they can say that they left the Democratic Party because they opposed how hawkish the Party had become -- so hawkish that even Trump would be a safer and more sensible foreign policy option. It remains to be seen how credible they'll be, because, well, on most other issues they're nuts, but on this one, they could be more credible than Trump himself to people with real concerns. I've said all along that if Biden doesn't get his wars under control, he will lose in November. The switch to Harris gives Democrats a partial reprieve, but the one thing she is most seriously vulnerable on is the suspicion that Democrats are going to continue saddling us with senseless and hopeless foreign wars. Kennedy and Gabbard could be effective at driving that point home -- sure, not to rank-and-file Democrats, who are generally much more dovish than their leaders, and who are even more wary of Republicans on that count, but to the "undecideds," who know little, even of what little they know.

    • [08-29] What does Jack Smith's new indictment against Trump mean?

    • [08-30] Trump throws another Hail Mary on the hush-money case.

  • Andrew Prokop: [08-30] The Trump Arlington National Cemetery controversy, explained: "Shoving, insults, politicizing soldiers' gravesites." For more on this:

  • Nikki McCann Ramirez:

  • James Risen: Why the media won't report the truth about Trump: "The political press has doubled down on horse-race coverage of the election, overlooking the threat Trump poses to democracy." The mainstream press does a half-assed job of covering nearly everything and everyone, but they seem to be exceptionally inept when it comes to Donald Trump. I have a few theories about why, and I'd love to see an article that explored them, but this piece, with its historical review of election books from 1960 on, never gets to the point. One clue to the problem appears in the title: the idea that there is such a thing as "truth about Trump." Sure, it's a natural idea for the star writer for a publiciation that prides itself on muckracking. But is there any such thing?

    Sure, Trump has a history, so journalists can write about what he's said and done in the past, and how rarely one has anything to do with the other. Still, few journalists are up to the task of sorting fact from fraud from utter bullshit, which seems to exist in such profusion for no better reason than to camouflage underlying meaning -- if, indeed, there is any, for like Churchill's "armada of lies" you only have his word that there is some "precious truth" somewhere. The only sensible way to report on what Trump says would be to put the quotes into a table, each one followed by a note explaining the fallacy. (Feel free to apply the technique to other politicians.) The revelation about Trump is that there is nothing else leftover. Journalists stuck with following him around can file each day's article under the same headline: "Trump lies again." Or, if they want to mix it up a bit, "Trump is a pompous asshole (again)."

    Having disposed of the horse's orifices, journalists might consider doing some actual reporting. The first thing they need to work on is making the campaign more transparent: Who are the operatives? How does their polling direct messaging? What psychology does the messaging attempt to manipulate? Where is the money coming from? And what do donors expect for their money? Who's thinking about staffing? What are all those eager staff-in-waiting plotting to do? Again, it's fair to ask these same questions of Democrats, but you really need to start with Trump, because with him the real interests are buried so extra deep.

    One mistake many people make is to assume that presidents and administrations go hand-in-hand. While the president has to sign off on who does what, and can oversee an administration through cabinet meetings, directives, and the occasional staff shake up, harmony requires a degree of focus that Trump simply is incapable of. If Trump wins, he will quickly sign off on whatever slate of generic Republican functionaries and donors he's presented with, and they will go off and try to do whatever they've long wanted to do.[*] Sure, they may be a bit Trumpier this time than they were in 2016, but that's just fashion sense. All Republicans, including Trump, have been marching to the same ideological drumbeat for decades (as popularized by Fox News, and articulated by their "think tanks," in forms like "Project 2025").

    Trump is the Republicans' leader not because he leads (except in the fashion sense) but because he's the perfect diversion: he keeps the media focused on side-issues and trivia, all the while cultivating an air of deniability, as in how can you possibly believe he believes in anything? Given how many of his fans seem to be in on the joke, it's really quite amazing that so few journalists can figure it out. (Of course, they wouldn't last long if they did, nor would anyone who did and still had an ounce of self-respect stick around, so you might say that natural selection favors gullible journalists on the Trump beat.)

    The main reason for wanting Trump to lose is to avoid having to survive four more years of Republican administration, but Trump as president presents its own discomforts, chiefly in the form of embarrassment. As president, most of what he would do may be harmless -- he'll watch a lot of TV, tweet, golf, pose for pictures, talk nonsensically, waddle absent-mindedly, hold campaign rallies even after being term-limited, make occasional "perfect phone calls," and run his family grafts (or, like the government, allow them to be run in his name). Any president can stupefy, but no one else has ever come close to his level. If this were a purely aesthetic matter, I might not mind seeing the exalted office of the presidency reduced to buffoonery. But the office has too much power to entrust anyone like him, let alone to someone whose worst instincts are reinforced by the malevolence of his party.

    [*] Journalists would be well advised to dig up John Nichols' 2017 quickie, Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America. The book on Trump's initial cabinet picks was soon obsoleted as several subjects self-destructed almost instantly, but it's a useful empirical account of on how Trump picks "the best people" and why.

    [PS]: After writing the above, I got a spam pitch for donations from The Intercept, which I might as well quote at length:

    When Donald Trump announced his third campaign for the White House, leading voices in the journalism industry vowed that the press couldn't fail in its coverage of Trump again.

    This time, the media would aggressively investigate Trump while focusing coverage on the threat that he poses to democracy, we were told. The stakes for the nation in the election, not just the odds of who was likely to win the campaign, would be put front and center.

    But with 66 days until the election, it's clear that the major national news media hasn't changed a bit.

    Horse-race coverage is back in full force, with breathless reports on every trivial social media spat or tick in poll numbers running on an endless loop 24/7 -- while the threat Trump poses to democracy is now relegated to an afterthought.

    The Intercept rejects this failed approach to political journalism. Every day, we're reporting on what the candidates really stand for, how their policies will impact your life, and how billionaire campaign donors stand to benefit.

    Risen's article, which I had just found so wanting, was obviously their best idea on how to do this, so I thought, maybe, write them a letter? I did, following my quote with a few more thoughts:

    I realize that this, like most things, is easier to complain about than to fix. The subject is vast and deep, and perversely rooted in the minds of people who don't read and are immune to analysis. I could imagine this taking a whole book just to explain: perhaps a sequel to Manufacturing Consent as something like Manufacturing Faux Divisions in the Theater of the Absurd.

    Paradoxically, if one reported as I suggest on both Harris and Trump, it would probably be devastating for her while merely annoying to him, for much the same reason as focusing on corruption killed Hillary Clinton while letting Trump off the hook -- that we hold her to higher standards, because she presents as worthy of them, whereas he's just Trump.

    By the way, my theory there was that voters saw both candidates as really horrible choices, but also saw an opportunity to get rid of one of them, and seized on that opportunity to vote Hillary off the island. To some extent, that worked against Trump in 2020, but he had other things buoying him up, and he refused to take the hint. If I was a campaign strategist, I'd try to figure out how to raise consciousness of this election as the voters' opportunity to finally rid us of his oppressive presence.

    I doubt anything will come of this, because it never does. I've written a dozen or so unsolicited advice letters over the years, and never gotten any meaningful response. (Two letters I wrote early on did elicit responses that changed my life, but they were more in the form of dismissive harrangues: Eugene Genovese convinced me to give some serious study to Marxism, and Robert Christgau invited me to write for the Village Voice. Come to think of it, aggressive letters may work better for me. I once wrote a letter to Steve Ballmer, that got me a job interview at Microsoft in 1984. They ran me through an assembly-line gauntlet of middle managers from Xerox PARC who couldn't square the timid, uncredentialed programmer they saw with the prick who had written the letter, so they passed. Had they taken a chance, it would have changed my life, and possibly theirs. I quite possibly would have developed into a millionaire tech entrepreneur, instead of becoming a free software diehard who hates every fiber of their being.)

    Sorry for that diversion, but that was something I've long wanted to get off my chest. What I meant to write next was that I woke up this morning trying to figure out how to pass some unsolicited advice to the Harris campaign:

  • Matthew Stevenson: [08-30] Trump IPOs his presidency:

    Why does anyone think Donald Trump is actually running for president? Granted, he's the Republican nominee and is on the ballot in all fifty states, but the only election day that interests Trump is the one around September 20. On that day (or perhaps a few days later) the lockout period on his Trump Media shares (for which he paid nothing) expires and he will be free to dump his gifted 57.6% stake (114,750,000 shares) on scheming billionaires (for example, the Saudis, Vladimir Putin, a Mexican drug cartel, etc.) who might have an interest in the first $2.4 billion IPO (initial public offering) of a prospective American presidency.

    Trump isn't so much a candidate these days as a walking conflict-of-interest whose bumper stickers might well read: "Trump-Vance 2024: On Sale September 20."

Vance, and other Republicans:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [08-27] An inside look at how the far right is mainstreaming itself: "A radical troll got unmasked -- and then spilled the beans." On Jonathan Keeperman.

  • Michael C Bender: [08-31] JD Vance's combative style confounds Democrats but pleases Trump: "Over dozens of events and more than 70 interviews, Mr. Vance's performances as Donald Trump's attack dog have endeared him to his boss, even if America is broadly less enthusiastic." I noticed this because the headline elicited considerable ridicule on X. In particular, Andrew:

    We weren't confounded @nytimes. We're disgusted. We're mortified for our country that this weird misogynistic sociopath abomination could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. And that you keep writing headlines line this while our democracy burns to the ground.

    Some more comments:

    • JFC another misleading headline from the rag @nytimes. At this point, MSM are committing election interference with their overt biased reporting. What happened to journalistic integrity. We are NOT confounded, not in the least.
    • JD Vance's Combative style? The man is a twerp. Nobody thinks he's even the least bit impressive. He is -10 unfavorable and Trump is crapping his diaper over it.
    • Every single Democrat I know is delighted that Vance is on the ticket. He's one of the least effective politicians in recent memory.

    Of course, the comment roll degenerates quickly once the right-wing bots get into action: "That's a lot of propaganda but you are the Communist Party. I never voted Republican but I'm not voting for the candidate of no choice backed by the war party." If this "I never voted Republican" line seems to come gratuitously out of the blue, Steve M wrote an eye-opening post on this phenomenon: [09-02] A charitable explanation for the latest New York Times reporting failure (a different one, but quel coïncidence), following up on [09-01] A failed attempt at humanizing Trump? It worked on your paper's reporter.

    One helpful commenter did point us to this:

    • Ben Smith: [05-05] Joe Kahn: 'The newsroom is not a safe space': An interview with the New York Times Executive Editor, who says:

      It's our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it's not the top one -- immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they're favorable to Trump and minimize them?

      The problem isn't that they're reporting on issues "favorable to Trump," but that they're accepting that slant as fact instead of exposing it as nonsense. They do that because they so readily accept Republican framings at face value, when most of them are not just partisan distortions but bald-faced lies. Of course, it's not just Republicans they favor. They'll carry water for any well-heeled lobby (Israel is a perennial favorite). Kahn goes on to brag that the Times offers "a much more favorable view of Biden's conduct over foreign policy at a difficult time than the polling shows the general public believes." Again, he's consciously catering to powerful interests, while slighting honest reporting that the public sorely needs.

  • Kevin T Dugan: [08-29] The right-wing crusade against DEI isn't actually working.

  • Gary Fineout/Kimberly Leonard: [08-30] Ron DeSantis is struggling to maintain power in Florida following presidential campaign flop.

  • Margaret Hartmann: [08-28] JD Vance blames staff for disastrous doughnut-shop visit:

    Last week, J.D. Vance took a break from saying weird things about childless people to visit a doughnut shop in Valdosta, Georgia. Presumably, the Trump campaign wanted to show off how well the VP nominee connects with regular people. Instead, it got a viral video that has been compared unfavorably to an infamously cringeworthy episode of The Office.

    This story also provides context for a New Yorker cartoon.

  • David Sirota: [08-29] Project 2025 started a half-century ago. A Trump win could solidify it forever. Minor point, but both sides are tempted to indulge in arguments of this form: that this election is some kind of tipping point wherre the wrong way will lead to permanent, irreversible horrors. While I can't categorically say that's impossible, it seems pretty unlikely. The biggest problem with Project 2025 is that it's mostly unworkable. Indeed, most conservative policies are bound to fail: some are just designed that way (presumably to make government look bad, or at least hapless), some attempt to do impossible things, and many create feedback loops (or blowback) that erode them from within. The last three Republican presidencies have ended with remarkably low approval ratings, and their rate of collapse has been accelerating (Reagan-Bush lasted 12 years, Bush-Cheney 8, Trump 4; by contast, Democratic presidencies have tended to end with a feeling of satisfaction, like a feeling that we've recovered enough we can afford to go out and do something stupid again).

    Of course, there is a difference between right and left here. Democrats' fear that incremental changes, while not so troubling to start with, could eventually turn catastrophic, as in the Republican packing of the Supreme Court. In another major example, it took 30+ years for the repeal of Taft-Hartley to be turned into a serious union-busting tool -- which radically undermined the Democratic Party's political base, leading politicians like Bill Clinton to turn for corporate support, and further alienate the party base. Project 2025 would like to do lots of things like that, but the one thing that looms largest there is the attack on the civil service system.

    On the other hand, right-wing paranoia is often just that. For example, Stephen Miller has a pinned tweet warning:

    If Democrats win they will:
    Eliminate the filibuster
    Pack SCOTUS
    Make DC a state
    Import a new electorate with full voting rights
    Declare dissent "hate speech," punishable with jail time
    Enforce a vast censorship & surveillance regime
    Make their power over you PERMANENT.

    The first three sound like pretty reasonable ideas, as they would expand democracy (well, restore is more like it, as they'd reverse currently undemocratic practices). The last four are not on any Democratic agenda, even as "blue sky" wish list items. (Ok, the one about "hate speech" is being done to criminalize dissent over Israel, but that's being driven by AIPAC, and mostly behind closed doors.) On the other hand, those four points do smell a lot like things Republicans would be keen on doing (they'd be deporting and stripping rights, but that's effectively the same).

    I had to go back and qualify my paranoia comment, because some of their fears are that Democratic programs might not just work but become so popular that they can't be repealed or rolled back: there are several big examples, like Social Security and Medicare, as well as numerous smaller ones.

  • Ramon Antonio Vargas: [08-31] Ex-beauty contestant condemns JD Vance for use of embarrassing video: "Viral video of Caitlin Upton from 2007, which led to her considering suicide, used by Vance to mock Kamala Harris."

  • Ryan Grim: [08-31] Project 2025 roots date back half a century: Interview with David Sirota on "how a memo from 1971 laid the groundwork for enshrining corporate corruption in American politics." I'll spare you the suspense and note that the "memo" was the famous Lewis Powell letter, which pretty much everyone who's tracked the history of right-wing think tanks, direct mail, and lobbying operations at least references and often starts with. Still fits the definition of "smoking gun." Interview also goes into Sirota's longer-term project, a series of podcasts called Master Plan: Legalizing Corruption.

Harris:

  • The CNN interview:

  • Perry Bacon Jr.:

  • Eric Levitz: [08-30] Kamala Harris's big housing plan has a big problem: "Affordable housing comes at a cost." I wouldn't be surprised to find one can poke holes in Harris's plan (which I haven't studied any further), but most of these points strike me as wrong-headed. I rented up to 1985, and have owned a series of houses since then. Still, I can't say much about them as investments -- my record has been pretty mixed. But what I can say is that owning made a big difference to me psychologically, because I really hated the power that landlords held over me as a tenant. On the other hand, owning gives me the freedom to build, to tailor, to make my home work for me. Levitz seems to be arguing that renting is more cost-effective, and in some ways it may be. And I'm sure there are other arguments at play here (e.g., renters are more mobile, which makes labor markets more efficient). But there's more to it.

    PS: Levitz tried to sum up his article in a pair of tweets:

    • Harris wants housing to be more affordable -- and a good vehicle for building wealth. Yet the cheaper housing becomes, the worse it will perform as an investment.

    • A frustratingly large number of people are reading this tweet and concluding, "He must be arguing that we should keep housing unaffordable to prop up home values; I should express outrage about that imaginary claim, instead of reading the piece" (which argues the exact opposite)

      On the merits, there is little question that liberals should prioritize making housing cheaper. There is nothing progressive about putting property owners' return-on-investment above less privileged Americans' access to shelter. Further, promoting homeownership as a wealth building strategy also fails many homeowners. Concentrating one's savings in a single asset is a perilous investment strategy, especially for America's least privileged groups.

    This dual nature is so locked into our thinking about housing it's hard to see anyone debunking it, least of all a politician. Still, why not start by treating this as two separate problems, which have been confounded in the interests of a special interest group (the real estate industry, which seeks to drive up prices, and finds it useful to disguise inflation as appreciation). I can think of a dozen programs that would help in one way or another, but they hinge on breaking the conceptual hold of this dual nature -- one so strong that even Levitz can't see his way out of. Of course, one could simply cut the Gordian knot and blame it all on capitalism, and you can certainly make that case, but that's too easy an answer, and too simple a solution.

  • John McWhorter: [08-29] 'Joy' is a euphemism for a word no one wants to say out loud: I clicked on the title for the most basic of reasons, which is to find out who is saying such a thing, and why? (Third edit, as my first was filled with expletives.) This isn't the first time I've done that and found this bloke dangling from the hook. His mission in life is to help conservative white folk feel better about their racism -- a task he has expanded beyond his columns to include books like Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America. And there he's said the "word no one wants to say," but evidently it's ok for him to say (guess why?). He starts by asking us to compare Harris joy with a list of white alternatives he finds no joy in (from Gretchen Whitmer to Beto O'Rourke, how hard do you think he looked? did he even have any idea what to look for? or does he just assume the euphemism is commutative?). I mean, this is a guy who thought Woke Racism was clever, so does he really know what joy means? And why can't he imagine that joy is just a personality attribute that any individual can exhibiti and/or find? Why does everything have to trace back to race? Oh yeah, that's his business model.

  • Christian Paz: [08-28] How is Kamala Harris getting away with this? "The nominee is pivoting hard to the right on immigration, so why do progressives say they can live with it?" My answer is something along the lines of "a candidate's gotta do what she's gotta do." I'm in no position to second-guess, much less micromanage, her campaign. I wouldn't be allowed to anyway, and the noise I might create is just spurious. Sure, when she says or does something I really object to, I'll speak up (cf. the sections this and every week on Israel), but I don't see any point in getting hysterical about it. Candidates says lots of things during campaigns that never turn real.

    Besides, I really don't care about immigration per sé. It's not a left-right issue (unlike equality, freedom, justice, and peace). I have a problem with mistreating immigrants (which is something Republican do and want to do much more of). I have a problem with forcing people to emigrate (which is mostly done by war, by repression, by economic hardship, and increasingly by climate, which are all issues Republicans are on the wrong side of). I think that people should have a "right to exile," because everyone should have a right to live in a country that is safe and supportive -- as some countries demonstrably are not -- but that doesn't mean that other countries have an obligation to accept just anyone (I'm trusting that somewhere someone will be agreeable, without coercion). But I accept that there borders between countries, and that governments ("of, by and for the people" that live therein) should regulate them, subject to some fairly universal standards of decent conduct. I doubt that it's possible (never mind desirable) to make those borders totally impermeable, but I do believe that it's better to manage affairs legally than it is to drive them underground. (That the US has millions of "illegal immigrants" suggests that they didn't do a very good job of managing things legally.)

    I personally don't fear immigrants, and I don't have a lot of patience or understanding for people who do (who for the most part strike me as ignorant clods; although most that I know would make exceptions for the immigrants they actually know -- it's only the hypothetical others that provoke their kneejerk reactions). But I do fear the political issue, which dovetails so neatly with much more delirious and dangerous right-wing demagoguery, so I don't mind artful efforts to defuse the issue. I can't really tell whether Harris' pivot qualifies, not least because I'm not the audience she's pitching. I do know that it is very difficult to pass any new law on immigration, so her proposals are going to be kicked around many blocks before anything becomes real. As with everything else she proposes, we'll take it seriously when the time comes. Until then, the only thing that really matters is that she beats Trump.

    Since we're on immigration, here are some more pieces:

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Daniel Han: [08-30] From 'a nobody' to the Senate: George Helmy is ready to replace Bob Menendez.

  • Umair Irfan: [08-26] Why Democrats aren't talking much about one of their biggest issues: "Climate change was a huge issue for Democrats in the the 2020 election. Voters care less now."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [08-31] Why Democrats refused to allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC: "The Democrats did not allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC because they did not want to encourage any possible sympathy for the Palestinian people who are facing a genocide fully supported by the Biden-Harris administration." Sympathy would have been cheap, hardly a step above "thoughts and prayers." And while Israel has worked tirelessly at dehumanizing Palestinians, few Democrats actually buy their arguments. They mostly ignore them, because if they didn't, they'd have to confront the savage facts of Israel's caste system, which is at odds with their cherished "only democracy in the Middle East." I think the decision was the logical result of three precepts: They see the DNC, as both parties have for at least 30 years now, as an infomercial, and want to squeeze every last drop of value out of it, so they add speakers who enhance their brand, and reject any who might hurt them. (The rejection of the Teamsters leader, simply for having spoken at the RNC, was arguably worse than not slotting a token Palestinian.) They believed that even admitting concern, much less culpability, for anything bad on their watch would hurt them, and Gaza was a major sore point -- and frankly one that many of them could (and should) feel embarrassed over. And as the party of the left (if only because Republicans left them with no other choice), they were terrified of losing critical donors -- wealthy pro-Israel donors are most likely to break to Trump, whereas there was little risk in losing the anti-genocide masses to Trump. Also a fourth one: this year at least, the defense of democracy doesn't seem to allow much room for the practice of democracy, so the notion that everyone in the party should get a say just got squashed (without much complaint from the rank and file).

  • Lavanya Ramanathan/Christian Paz: [09-01] Democrats' vibes are excellent. Can they turn that into votes?

  • Bernie Sanders: [08-29] The 'far-left agenda' is exactly what most Americans want.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists and the economy:

Ukraine and Russia:

The World and/or America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Henry Farrell: I had these tabs saved off last week, but didn't find them in time.

    • [08-12] Seeing like a Matt: "The intellectual blind spots of anti-anti-neoliberalism." Matt is Yglesias, who has a series of articles defending neoliberalism against its enemies, cited here: [07-11] What was neoliberalism?; and [07-23] Neoliberalism and its enemies.

    • [08-21] Illiberalism is not the cure for neoliberalism: "Democrats should be reading Danielle Allen, not Deneen." In addition to the Yglesias pieces, this cites James Pogue: [08-19] The Senator warning Democrats of a crisis unfolding beneath their noses, where the Senator is Chris Murphy [D-CT], which in turn refers back to Chris Murphy: [2022-10-25] The wreckage of neoliberalism, as well as where Patrick J Deneen enters the picture -- his books are Why Liberalism Failed (2018) and Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (2023).

      I don't have a good picture of what neoliberalism is: in economics it seems to be an attempt to dress up laissez-faire as something new (and therefore not yet discredited); in politics it wears two dresses, as sleight-of-hand magic for liberals and as unfettered plundering for conservatives; and in foreign policy (or "geopolitics"), it seems to be the good cop teamed with the neoconservative bad cop; and on the left/liberal side it is something self-evident to favor or oppose (the right/conservative side doesn't much care for the term, so the few people, like Yglesias, who advocate neoliberalism wind up trying to defend something significantly different from what most leftists attack as neoliberalism, a distinction blurred by how readily they lapse into cartoonish anti-leftism).

      Much of the piece is about Danielle Allen's book, Justice by Means of Democracy, which turns on points I don't quite grasp the subtlety of -- partly, no doubt, because I've never made much sense of Rawls, but also because I don't believe conservatives when they claim to discern some true "public interest" they've spend much of their lives destroying. On the other hand, I am inclined to lean into the notion that more democracy is the answer, especially if it results in better justice. I'm intrigued enough to order a copy. I also looked up the following:

  • Anna North: [08-29] Kids today: your guide to the confusing, exciting, and utterly new world of Gen Alpha.

  • Igor Shoikhedbrod: [08-31] Why socialists shouldn't reject liberalism: An interview with Matt McManus, the author of the forthcoming book The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-30] Roaming Charges: Genocide with a smile. Starts with Harris, but ranges widely, including:

    • "In CNN interview, Vice President Harris says she will appoint Republican to her cabinet": First I heard of this sounded less like a commitment than another cock-eyed suggestion by Bill Scher (Kamala Harris should pledge to appoint a Republican to her cabinet, followed by Which Republicans might serve in a Harris cabinet), but I figured that was just Scher being Scher. I think committing to a type is dumb, as well as self-crippling. (Remember how Clinton wanted a woman as Attorney General, then wound up with Janet Reno as his 3rd pick?) On the other hand, looks like there will be plenty of Republican applicants even without a commitment: see Alex Gangitano: More than 200 Bush, McCain, Romney aides endorse Harris.
    • Notes that among states ranked by life expectancy, Biden won all of the top 10, but Trump won 9 of the bottom 10.
    • "Democracy in the post-Citizens United era: A mere 50 'mega-donors' have pumped more than $1.5 billion into the election, so far."
    • "On Tuesday, southern Iran recorded a heat index of 82.2°C and a dew point of 36.1°C, provisionally the highest ever globally."
    • I'll register a strong dissent on St Clair's dis of Philip Larkin's jazz writing. I don't know much about Larkin's poetry (or whatever), but Larkin's All What Jazz: A Record Diary, 1961-1971 is a personal favorite.

Obituaries

Books

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Dean Baker: [09-01] [responding to josh ryan-collins: Part of the job of a progressive government is to shift the public narrative towards the idea that the state can improve people's lives. Pretending the govt budget is like a households', as in this economically illiterate video, reinforces the idea that it can't.]
    I would argue that it's even more important for a progressive government to explain to people that the government structures the market to determine winners and losers, with things like patent/copyright monopolies, rules of corporate governance, and trade deals.
    [Seems to me these points aren't exclusive, or even alternatives.]

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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Music Week

August archive (final).

Music: Current count 42869 [42830] rated (+39), 34 [34] unrated (-0).

Once again, Speaking of Which took an extra day, and I'll probably spend more time today adding to it than I spend writing here. [PS: I did wind up adding another 63 links, 2607 words.] Good reason to get this organized early, which means collecting the reviews here, and also opening up a new draft file for September, as this is the last installment in the August archive. Meanwhile, I've been playing old Motown comps, and now some Sonny Boy Williamson -- things I can enjoy immensely without having to think (or write) about.

A-list shrunk back this week, with the Ottaviano coming early, and nothing else coming very close (although I may have cheated Houston Person, knowing that better albums were coming; maybe also Dyani, whose 1978 Song for Biko is a favorite). The old music offered welcome relief from the August doldrums. Phil Overeem mentioned Dyani, and I realized that my ex-LP Music for Xaba was missing from my database (memory pegged it at B+, and the YouTube recheck refined that). I noticed Person when I was looking at the late guitarist Russell Malone's discography. But before getting to the albums Malone played on, I thought I'd check out some of Person's early Prestige releases. We'll get to the later stuff, and maybe some of Malone's own work, next week.

I mostly followed up recent posts from Michael Tatum, Christian Iszchak, Chris Monsen, and Dan Weiss. It's worth noting that despite critical pans damn near everywhere else, Iszchak and Tatum A-listed the Eminem album, while Weiss liked it about as much as I did (from one quick and not very focused play, I must admit).

Some small progress on my house projects. After four failed attempts, I gave up and hired an electrician to install the back door light, so that's done. Key thing he did was to install a box to mount the light to, whereas the old one was hung on the vinyl siding cover. Still, the main trick was standing on a ladder while holding the dead weight of the new fixture and securing all of the wires. I'm supposed to be getting a quote on repairing the fallen plaster ceiling. So if it's reasonable, we can knock that off.

I did manage to do one small project on my own: shimming a counter top to keep water from pooling and dripping. Next project will be to try to weld a broken plastic garbage can lid. I bought a tool, but I've never tried using it. Also note that the electrician looked at the loose camera wire, and decided he couldn't fix it, so I'm on my own there.

Just one more chapter in the late Lewis H Lapham's Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy. Takes me back to much history I lived through, starting in the late 1980s, but mostly focuses on 2001-05, during the early days of the war on the abstract noun. Sharp analysis, with many delicious turns of phrase. One could go back and mine the book for aphorisms. I should see if I can recover a few. One he uses several times is the strange belief that "money is good for the rich, but bad for the poor."

I stopped by Barnes & Noble last week, for the first time I've been in a bookstore since the pandemic, possibly some years longer. I picked out three books that I wouldn't have thought of to buy had I not seen them first, so they're likely to be next up. For most of my life, I headed to bookstores 3-4 times a week, so it took considerable business malpractice to end that habit. (Borders closing was a major blow, after which B&N seemed to morph into some kind of glorified toy store. I was even under the impression that B&N had stopped carrying magazines, but they still had a fairly substantial section.) Next up should be a return to the library. I need to figure out how to make use of local library resources to do anything along the lines of the research I need.

My future direction is very uncertain. But I've been getting some help recently on the Jazz Poll, which makes it more likely to continue.

New records reviewed this week:

Neil Adler: Emi's Song (2024, self-released): Pianist, also plays harmonica, and incorporated that into his website. Seems to be his first album, a quartet with bass, drums, and congas, on a wide range of covers along with three of his own. B+(**) [cd]

Erlend Albertsen Basspace: Name of the Wind (2024, Dugnad Rec): Norwegian bassist, second album as leader, group a quintet, mostly strings and keyboards, with Albertsen also playing some soprano sax, plus: Ellie Mäkelä (viola, Hardanger fiddle), Egil Kalman (modular synth, double bass), Simon Albertsen (drums, synth), and Hogne Kleiberg (piano, synth). B+(**) [sp]

Gonçalo Almeida: States of Restraint (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Portuguese bassist, based in Rotterdam, prolific since 2014. With Susana Santos Silva (trumpet) and Gustavo Costa (percussion), for "a set of remarkable minimalist tone poems distinguished by their brooding crawl-time intensity and austere meditative aesthetics." B+(***) [sp]

Marc Ciprut: Moonshine (2024, White Label): Guitarist, from New York, plays fusion/funk, various lineups, mostly electric keyboards (or organ), electric bass, drums. B+(*) [cd]

Walter Crockett: Children So Long (2022, self-released): Folk singer-songwriter, from Massachusetts, seems to be his first (and only) album, although he looks like he's been around a long time, dropping hints like "drives through Michigan or Kansas in the '40s and '50s," "listening to Elvis in 1955," "Mom is 98 now," and he dates his songs back to 1976. B+(**) [sp]

Eminem: The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) (2024, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope): Twelfth studio album since 1996, namechecks the title character of his 1999 megahit, still sells enough he can laugh off the bad reviews (46/15 Metacritic, 50/15 AOTY, 4.8 at Pitchfork). I don't know what the beef is, and midway through I hadn't noticed much one way or the other, but "Houdini" is pretty damn catchy, and tuning in on words the next few songs was interesting enough, even though the only words I jotted down were "deep down I'm a dork." B+(**) [sp]

Signe Emmeluth: Banshee (2023 [2024], Motvind): Danish alto saxophonist, based in Oslo, debut album in 2018 launched her group, Emmeluth's Amoeba. B+(***) [sp]

Flukten: Flukten (2023 [2024], Odin): Norwegian quartet, second album, I have the filed under saxophonist Hanna Paulsberg but the writers this time are drummer Hans Hulbækmo (6) and guitarist Marius Hirth Klovning (2); also with Bárður Reinert Poulsen (bass). B+(***) [sp]

Sahra Halgan: Hiddo Dhawr (2024, La Région/Danaya Music): Singer from Somaliland, which is a "de facto independent state" broken away from Somalia in 1991 but still unrecognized by most other countries. Second album, combines Ethiopian and Arabic influences, with some of the flavor of the "Saharan rock" common in Niger and Mali. B+(***) [sp]

Eirik Hegdal Eklektisk Samband: Turnchest (2022 [2024], Particular): Billed as "a new Scandinavian Super band!" with the Team Hegdal saxophonist the "initiator," joined by Thea Grant (voice/electronics), Per Texas Johansson (tenor sax/flute/clarinets), Anja Lauvdal (piano/synth/pump organ), Ole Morten Vågan (bass), and Hans Hulbækmo (drums/percussion/mouth harp). As is often the case, it's the vocals that turn me off, but while my usual complaint is arch or starchy, this time it's deliriously disruptive. B+(*) [sp]

Danny Jonokuchi Big Band: A Decade (2022 [2024], Bandstand Presents): Trumpet player, has at least one previous album (hype sheet says four, and mentions an ISJAC award), leads a conventional big band through one original and a batch of nicely done standards, ending with his vocal on a bonus take of "Skylark." B+(*) [cd]

I. Jordan: I Am Jordan (2024, Ninja Tune): British electronica producer/DJ, previously released an EP as India Jordan, seems this is first album. Opener is dead (or worse), but gets better after finding a beat. Much better. B+(*) [sp]

JPEGMafia: I Lay Down My Life for You (2024, AWAL): Rapper-producer Barrington Hendricks, half-dozen albums since 2016, last year's Danny Brown collaboration Scaring the Hoes got a lot of critical applause, but I never made any sense out of it. I can't say much about this one either, but with only three "feat." slots, it mostly dwells in dank and dark noise -- I've seen comps to Death Grips, which does even less for me (perhaps because of the occasional break one catches here). B+(*) [sp]

Move: Free Baile: Live in Shenzhen (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Free jazz trio, Portuguese and/or Brazilian: Yedo Gibson (sax), Felipe Zenicola (bass), João Valinho (drums). Second album, a rabble-rousing crowd-pleaser. B+(***) [sp]

Simon Nabatov Quartet Feat. Ralph Alessi: Lovely Music (2021 [2024], Clean Feed): Russian pianist, left at 20 in 1979, ostensibly for Israel but wound up in US, studying at Juilliard, becoming a US citizen in 1986, but he's lived in Germany since 1989, which is shortly after his discography kicks off (Discogs credits him with four 1988 albums). Quartet is rounded out with Sebastian Gille (sax), David Helm (bass), and Leif Berger (drums), so doesn't count the featured guest on trumpet. Rather grand and, sure, lovely. B+(***) [sp]

Navy Blue: Memoirs in Armour (2024, Freedom Sounds): Rapper Sage Elesser, albums since 2020 (after a string of EPs back to 2015). Underground, "conscious," flows about as well as ever, not much sticks though. B+(***) [sp]

Nils Økland Band: Gjenskinn (2021-22 [2024], Hubro): From Norway, plays Hardnager fiddle, debut 1986, third group album since 2015, draws on folk and aims for ambient. B+(**) [sp]

Roberto Ottaviano/Danilo Gallo/Fernando Faraò: Lacy in the Sky With Diamonds (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Italian soprano saxophonist, fairly long list of albums since 1985, here with bass and drums, playing seven Steve Lacy songs plus a few originals/improvs with a bit of "These Foolish Things." A- [sp]

Jerome Sabbagh: Heart (2022 [2024], Analog Tone Factory): French tenor saxophonist, postbop, dozen or so albums since 2004, trio with Joe Martin (bass) and Al Foster (drums), three originals and five standards (from Ellington to "Body and Soul"). B+(**) [cd] [08-30]

Spanish Harlem Orchestra: Swing Forever (2023-24 [2024], Ovation): Latin jazz 13-piece big band led by pianist Oscar Hernández, ninth studio album, with Doug Beavers co-producing, and guest vocalist Gilberto Santa Rosa. Seems like records like this always sound great to start, but tiring by the end. B+(**) [cd]

Aki Takase Japanic: Forte (2023 [2024], Budapest Music Center): Japanese pianist, long based in Berlin, Quintet with Daniel Erdmann (tenor/soprano sax), Carlos Bica (bass), Dag Magnus Narvesen (drums), and Vincent von Schlippenbach (turntable), with guest credits for Nils Wogram (trombone) and her husband, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. First track hints at things Japanese, but the rest careens wildly, which can provide a thrill, or not. B+(**) [sp]

Zach Top: Cold Beer & Country Music (2024, Leo33): Country singer-songwriter from Washington State, 25, first album, no hint that's not his original name, serves up a nice batch of country clichés -- title song is wedged between "[My Life] Sounds Like the Radio" and "Cowboys Like Me Do," along with "Dirt Turns to Gold," "The Kinda Woman I Like," "Bad Luck", "Ain't That a Heartbnerak," "I Never Lie," and "Things to Do" (that's not all, but you get the drift). B+(**) [sp]

Luis Vicente Trio: Come Down Here (2023 [2024], Clean Feed): Portuguese trumpet player, many albums since 2012, this a trio with bass (Gonçalo Almeida) and drums (Pedro Melo Alves). B+(**) [sp]

Jack White: No Name (2024, Third Man): Singer-songwriter, founder of White Stripes and other alt/indie groups, sixth studio album under his own name, such as it is. I've never liked his solo albums, aside from the first (and even then not much), but this "back to roots" effort is pretty crunchy. B+(**) [sp]

WHO Trio: Live at Jazz Festival Willisau 2023 First Visit (2023 [2024], Ezz-Thetics): Trio of Michel Wintsch (piano), Bänz Oester (bass), and Gerry Hemingway (drums/voice); have at least a half-dozen albums since 1999. Live improv based (loosely) on Ellington compositions. B+(***) [bc]

Wilco: Hot Sun Cool Shroud (2024, Nonesuch, EP): Six decent songs, isolated bits of showy guitar, 17:36. B+(*) [sp]

X: Smoke & Fiction (2024, Fat Possum): Postpunk band from Los Angles, debut 1980, John Doe and Exene Cervenka the singer-songwriters, with D.J. Bonebrake on drums and Billy Zoom on guitar (except for 1986-99, missing only one album, but it took them even longer, until 2020, to come up with another). This is supposed to be their last ever. I was never much of a fan, but don't have any complaints here. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

Johnny Dyani With John Tchicai & Dudu Pukwana: Witchdoctor's Son (1978 [1987], SteepleChase): South African bassist (1945-86), one of the Blue Notes who went into exile in 1964, along with Pukwana (alto/tenor sax), joined here by the Afro-Danish alto/soprano saxophonist, and a global rhythm section of Alfredo Do Nascimento (guitar), Luez "Chuim" Carlos de Sequaira (drums), and Mohamed Al-Jabry (congas/percussion), with Dyani also on piano and vocals. Some two sax sections are quite wonderful. B+(***) [sp]

Johnny Dyani Quartet: Mbizo (1981 [1995], SteepleChase): Bassist-led quartet with two saxophonists -- Ed Epstein (alto/baritone) and Dudu Pukwana (alto/soprano) -- and drums (Churchill Jolobe). B+(***) [sp]

Johnny Dyani Quartet: Angolian Cry (1985 [1986], SteepleChase): Bassist-led quartet with John Tchicai (tenor sax/bass clarinet), Harry Beckett (trumpet/flugelhorn), and Billy Hart (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Johnny Dyani/Okay Temiz/Mongezi Feza: Music for Xaba (1972 [1973], Sonet): South African bassist, Turkish drummer, South African trumpet player, recorded in Stockholm, two pieces rooted in South Africa, two joint improvs. B+(***) [yt]

Johnny Dyani/Okay Temiz/Mongezi Feza: Music for Xaba Volume Two (1972 [1980], Sonet): Five more tracks from the same session, the opener by Feza, the rest by Dyani. B+(**) [yt]

Houston Person: Underground Soul! (1966, Prestige): Tenor saxophonist, b. 1934 in South Carolina, now regarded as one of the great mainstream tenors ever, started here at Prestige, where he also did a&r work for Prestige -- continuing with Muse from 1976-94, and HighNote after 1996. Soul jazz quartet with trombone (Mark Levine), organ (Charles Boston), and drums (Frank Jones). Gets off wrong-footed with a chintzy cover of "What the World Needs Now Is Love," but rights that with a couple of originals, which get the organ working, and show off some already impressive sax. B+(*) [yt]

Houston Person: Blue Odyssey (1968, Prestige): They cut 'em fast and loose at Prestige, so this was number four, but the earliest reissue I've found to stream, a sextet session that kicks off with two songs by pianist Cedar Walton, followed by four covers, most expressively on "Please Send Me Someone to Love." With Curtis Fuller (trombone), Pepper Adams (baritone sax), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Frank Jones (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Houston Person: Goodness! (1969, Prestige): Sixth prestige album, only horn in a sextet with organ (Sonny Phillips), guitar (Billy Butler), electric bass, drums, and congas. B+(***) [sp]>

Houston Person: Legends of Acid Jazz (1970-71 [1996], Prestige): A volume in a series that each collected two relatively obscure soul jazz albums onto a single CD, tied in to the then-current "acid jazz" genre, which sometimes sampled albums like those included. Person's entry combines the 1970 album Person to Person! (with Virgil Jones on trumpet, Grant Green on guitar, Sonny Phillips on organ/piano, plus electric bass, drums, congas) and 1971's Houston Express (two groups with Billy Butler on guitar, one with a lot of extra horns arranged by Horace Ott. B+(*) [sp]

Houston Person: Person-ified (1996 [1997], HighNote): The tenor saxophonist followed Joe Fields from Prestige to Muse to HighNote, where this rather mellow quartet was his first album -- a session with Teddy Edwards was recorded earlier in the month, but not released until later, and in any case gave Edwards first billing. This one is impeccably mainstream, with Richard Wyands (piano), Ray Drummond (bass), and Kenny Washington (drums), playing one Person piece and a batch of standards. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Rahsaan Barber & Everyday Magic: Six Words (Jazz Music City) [09-06]
  • Anne Burnell & Mark Burnell: This Could Be the Start of Something Big (Spectrum Music) [10-01]
  • Gunhild Carling: Jazz Is My Lifestyle! (Jazz Art) [09-01]
  • The Kris Davis Trio: Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic) [09-27]
  • Chad McCullough: In These Hills, Beyond (Calligram) [09-06]
  • Jack Wood & Nichaud Fitzgibbon: Movie Magic: Great Songs From the Movies (Jazz Hang) [10-01]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, August 26, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened Wednesday, August 21, 10:10 pm, night three of the Democratic National Convention, which as usual I didn't watch a minute of (although I may have overheard bits my wife watched, but she didn't watch much, either). I did watch the replays on Steven Colbert Live, except for Monday, when the delays wiped out the DVR. As the section below shows, I collected a fair representation of writing, which for my purposes more than suffices.

I did overhear a bit of RFK Jr.'s end-of-campaign speech on Friday, but didn't stick around for the punch line, so I was a bit taken aback to read later that he had endorsed Trump. I had read rumors to that effect earlier, but what I heard of the speech didn't inexorably lead to that conclusion. Before the speech, I had collected two links to speculative Ed Kilgore pieces, which are retained below, along with various post-speech takes.

I speculated last week that the DNC would be a splendid time for Biden to deliver on his mini-ceasefire hostage deal, but Netanyahu -- ever the GOP partisan -- managed to scotch even a proposal that was so tantamount to surrender that Hamas could still be blamed. In the end, the DNC's herculean efforts at damage control sufficed: the street protests happened, but got scant notice; the "uncommitted" delegates pressed, but were brushed aside; several "progressives" trusted enough to speak (notably Bernie Sanders) showed that the party welcomes their concerns within its unity of good feelings; and the keynoters reminded us that Israel lobby still commands the Party's deepest loyalty, while reserving the right to tailor the propaganda line to a constituency increasingly uncomfortable with the news.

That there was little meaningful dissent was a tribute to two things: the extent to which the menace of Donald Trump has united all Democrats, and the new sense of excitement that Kamala Harris has brought in erasing the doldrums of the Biden candidacy, as the keywords moved from good vibes to outright joy. Even the inertia-bound polls have started to move. One thing the DNC was not was democratic, but we've been spoon-fed bitter gruel for decades now, compared to which this exercise in elitocracy felt positively nourishing. While the Party elites haven't actually ceded any power, for the first time in ages -- we can now admit Obama's "yes we can" as a cynical advertising campaign -- they have let up on their prime directive of "managing expectations," and have (at least briefly) allowed democrats to consider the possibility that their hopes and desires might finally matter.

I don't doubt that post-November they'll struggle to push the genie of democracy back into the bottle. The Harris cabinet will be recruited from the usual suspects -- although they will have to pass a gauntlet of lingering "we won't go back" sentiments. (It is worth noting that some of the worst lingering tastes of the Obama administration, like Larry Summers, didn't get invited back -- even Rahm Emmanuel had to settle for an ambassadorship.) Moreover, Harris is likely to know that Democrats can't survive on spoils and cronyism alone. Democrats are increasingly demanding tangible results. And while the influence of money makes that hard, and often steers change in peculiar directions, that understanding isn't going to go away easily.

I got to Sunday evening with about 180 links and 9200 words, with maybe 80% of my usual sources checked. I wrote the above introduction when I got up Monday, and should wrap this up not too late evening, assuming I can avoid backtracking and breaking news.

PS: Gave up working on this after midnight, and decided to go ahead and post. Good chance for some Tuesday updates, but not much (I hope). I need to move on to Music Week, and some other long-delayed work.

Top story threads:

Israel:

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

Israel vs. world opinion:

Democratic National Convention:

The DNC was held in Chicago last week, Monday through Thursday, four tightly-scripted nights of prime-time infotainment. Given its prominence, this week we'll move the Democrats ahead of similar sections on Republicans, and push "Election notes" even further down. Also, some pieces specifically on Harris or Walz have been relegated to their sections.

  • Intelligencer Staff:

  • Kate Aronoff: The Democrats are running scared from the most important fights: "At its convention this week, the party largely avoided two crises that are the cause of mass suffering: climate change and Israel's war in Gaza."

  • Ben Burgis: [08-23] Shawn Fain has been a light in the darkness: "UAW president Shawn Fain's speech was the best part of the DNC. It featured a direct focus on workers otherwise absent from party rhetoric, and sidestepped the culture wars to identify the 'one true enemy' of corporate power."

  • Jonathan Chait:

    • [08-22] Kamala Harris gave the best acceptance speech I've ever seen: "A perfectly targeted message." Evidently the target was Chait. How useful that was remains to be seen. But given how many things Chait misunderstands, it's possible to satisfy him and still make sense to other people. Just to pick out one bit:

      Harris labeled her economic goal "an opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed." The notion of opportunity, with its implication that people should control their own economic destiny, has long been a conservative one. Harris stole it.

      The magic word here isn't "opportunity" but "everyone." The only opportunity conservatives offer is to fail, which matters to them because their beloved hierarchy is built on the backs of failures -- usually because the system is so rigged in the first place. Offering opportunity to everyone is a classically liberal idea, but actually achieving it is only something the left would dare attempt. How far Harris will go not just to permit opportunity but to nurture and sustain it remains to be seen. But that she offered the word "everyone" suggests that she will not be satisfied with the conservative game of failing all but the master class.

    • [08-23] Kamala Harris understood the assignment: "The convention shows how to re-create the Obama formula." Given that "the Obama formula" lost Congress, weakening the Democratic Party so severely that they wound up surrendering the presidency to Trump, that doesn't seem like much of a goal, much less an accomplishment. But the "assignment" was always a figment of Chait's imagination, his commitment to hopeless mediocrity and inaction shared by virtually nobody else. Still, I suppose it's good that he was willing to settle for whatever she offered him. But I suppose it wasn't a surprise, given how little he wants or expects:

      There is little point in selling the public on new liberal programs that a Republican-led Senate would ignore. . . . Harris's choice was to focus relentlessly on targeting the voters she needs to win 270 electoral votes, at the expense of fan service for progressives. . . . Alienating the left is not the point of these moves. It is simply the inevitable by-product. If you are targeting your message to the beliefs of the median voter, you are necessarily going to leave voters at the 99th percentile of the right-to-left spectrum feeling cold. The bitter complaints from the right that she is a fraud, and from the left that she is a sellout, are indications that Harris has calibrated her campaign perfectly.

    • But why does that perfect balance between charges of fraud and sellout sound so familiar? Like Hillary Clinton in 2016?

  • Jessica Corbett: [08-23] Working-class journalist's speech hailed as 'most radical' in DNC history: "John Russell urged Democrats to serve working Americans 'looking for a political home, after years of both parties putting profit above people.'"

  • David Dayen:

    • [08-23] Kamala Harris's DNC promises depend on filibuster reform: More basically, they depend on Democrats retaining control of the Senate, where they have an exceptionally difficult break this year, and on winning the House. They will need to be able to pass laws, over and against formidable lobbies, including laws that fight back against adverse court rulings, which are nearly certain to follow. Given the situation in the courts, it is unlikely that much can be done simply by executive order.

    • [08-22] Will the Senate take off the handcuffs?: "The Harris-Walz ticket and every Democrat are promising big things. But the filibuster makes that agenda impossible. Will they finally remove that barrier?" Possibly the same article as the one I cited before I noticed this source.

    • [08-27] A convention that placed image over detail: "What happens when the images break down?"

  • Liza Featherstone: [08-23] The 2024 Democratic Convention: More 1964 than 1968: "The media was obsessed with comparing this year's DNC to Chicago 1968. But given the party's rejection of the Uncommitted movement, Atlantic City 1964, when Democrats refused to seat Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, is more apt."

  • Luke Goldstein: [08-21] The convention nobody gets to see: "Many of the corporate-sponsored events, and even some that aren't, are locked down to the press."

  • Stanley B Greenberg: [08-23] The success of messaging at the DNC: "Democrats are hitting all the notes that have eluded them."

  • DD Guttenplan: [08-27] In "we're not going back!" Dems find an antidote to the politics of nostalgia: "Underneath the cliché that 'we're all in this together' lie harder truths that will need to be faced if Harris and Walz want to rally the nation for real change."

  • Patrick Iber:

    • [08-26] The unity convention: "The DNC showed a party that has successfully metabolized movement energy and insurgent campaigns while distancing from demands deemed harmful to its electoral prospects." This convention report was preceded by:

    • [07-18] A popular front, if you can keep it: "Biden claims he is remaining in the race because the threat of Trump is too great. That's the exact reason he should consider retiring."

    • [07-24] Kamala can win: "Hope will be an essential resource for her campaign. At her first raly, she succeeded in providing it."

  • Jake Johnson:

  • Susan Meiselas: [08-23] Images from inside (and outside) the DNC.

  • Heather Digby Parton: [08-23] The DNC did not unify Democrats. Donald Trump did that long before.

  • Bill Scher:

  • Grace Segers: [08-22] The DNC was a party. Now for the morning after. "It was a week of raucous enthusiasm and ear-bursting decibels. But the convention wasn't perfect. And the hard work of winning the election lies in wait."

  • Alex Shephard: [08-22] At the DNC, the Democrats are finally fighting: "With Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, Democrats have rediscovered their partisan edge."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [08-23] As I lay coughing: Watching the DNC with Covid and Faulkner.

  • Matthew Stevenson: [08-23] The Obamas sing songs of themselves.

  • Vox: I made fun of their soft lifestyle features last week, but this week they turned their whole crew loose at the DNC, for a smorgasbord of articles collected here, including:

  • Jada Yuan: [08-21] How DJ Cassidy turned the DNC roll call into a party for the ages.

  • Amy Zimet: [08-23] Isn't it moronic: America is ready for a better story. The DNC in memes, the title referring to a piece of Trumpist fodder warning that a Harris future would be "like being in a jail full of black inmates."

  • Israel, Gaza, and Genocide: Two stories here: the anti-genocide demonstrations organized around the convention, and the near-total blackout of any discussion of the issues inside the convention. I'm roping these stories off into their own sub-section: on the one hand, I believe that it is important to make people aware of the importance of the issue, and to impress on them the importance of changing US policy to weigh against the Israeli practice of war, genocide, and apartheid. On the other hand, I'm not terribly bothered that Democrats have chosen to compartmentalize this issue, to keep it from the rest of an agenda which offers much to be desired, above and beyond defense against far more ominous Republican prospects. And while I'm unhappy that their leaders have failed to act in any substantial way to restrain Israel, or even to dissociate themselves from support of genocide, I take some heart in the ambivalence and ambiguity they have sometimes shown, understanding as I do that peace is only possible when Israelis decide to become peaceful, and that behind-the-scenes diplomacy may be more effective in that regard than open-air protest. The latter, of course, is still critically necessary, to help nudge Israel's "friends" into such diplomacy, and should be supplemented with tangible pressure in the form of the BDS movement.

    • Michael Arria:

    • James Carden: [08-23] Kamala & Gaza: All words and no deeds make a divided party. This includes Harris's "full (brief) remarks on the issue," which I might as well also quote here:

      With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock, because now is the time to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. And let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the war that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

      At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating so many innocent lives lost, desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again, the scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.

      This is carefully written to show solidarity with Israel without explicitly endorsing Israel's amply demonstrated aims and tactics, while holding out a bare minimum of hope for peace and justice (but, like, no pressure on Israel). The first obvious point is the omission of any recognition of the context of the Oct. 7 outbreak. In terms Harris might relate to, Hamas "didn't just fall out of a coconut tree." Hamas was first founded as a charitable foundation in 1987, but it was preceded by 20 years of Israeli military occupation, 20 more years of Egyptian proxy rule as a refuge for Palestinians who were uprooted in Israel's 1947-49 "war for independence," and for 30 more years by the UK, whose Lord Balfour declared arbitrarily that Palestine should be a "homeland for the Jewish people." Over that entire period, basic political, economic, and human rights in Gaza (and all over Palestine) have been systematically denied, so the "suffering" finally admitted isn't something new after Oct. 7 but the result of longstanding Israeli policy.

      A second obvious thing is that the ritual endorsement of "Israel's right to defend itself" has become a sick joke. I'm not sure that anyone has, or should have, such a right, but in Israel's case it has been applied so frivolously, to justify so much excessive and unnecessary force applied so widely, that it should be discounted altogether. I've come to see "self-defense" not as a right but as a common human reaction which may be taken into consideration as a mitigating factor. Once Hamas started fighting outside of Gaza, on "Israeli soil," few people would object to Israeli forces fighting back, even indiscriminately, until Hamas forces were repulsed. That, quite plausibly, could have been called self-defense. I could imagine better ways to respond, but at least that's within the meaning of the term. However, Israel didn't stop at the walls of Gaza. They went on to inflict enormous damage on all of Gaza, killing at least 40,000 Palestinians, rendering well over a million homeless, destroying resources necessary for human sustenance, adding to the incalculable psychic harm that they have been cultivating for many decades. While one might argue that some of the damage might deter future attacks, it is at least as plausible that it will inspire future attacks. We shouldn't even entertain such arguments. What Israel has done in the name of "self-defense" is monstrous and shameful. Even observers with deep affection for Israel, like Harris and Biden, should be able to see that. If they don't, we should seriously question their cognitive skills, their empathy, and their ability to reason.

      A third obvious thing is her choice to put "a hostage deal" ahead of a cease fire. It shows first that Biden and her value Israeli lives much more than they do Palestinian lives, which is unbecoming (for democrats, who profess to believe in equal rights and respect for all) but hardly surprising (for Democrats). (By the way, note that Netanyahu seems to value Israeli lives -- that of the hostages, anyway -- less than he does Palestinians in prison or dead.) More importantly, Israel doesn't need to negotiate a ceasefire deal. They can simply declare one -- perhaps with some proviso about how much return fire they will unleash each time Palestinians fire back. For that matter, they could have accepted Hamas's offer of a truce ("hudna") long before, and prevented the Oct. 7 attacks altogether. That they didn't shows that their interest all along was the devastation of Palestinian society and economy, which has nothing to do with self-defense.

      Fourth point is "working around the clock" is belied, perhaps not by the clock but by the evidence that nothing they've tried has worked. The obvious reason is that as long as they're giving Israel "blank check" support, Netanyahu has no reason to back away from his maximal war program. While I don't think Washington should go around ordering other countries how to do their business, there are times when one must express disapproval and withdraw favor, and this is one.

    • Juan Cole: [08-23] What you didn't hear at DNC: Israeli expulsion decrees disrupt last Gaza aid hub, jeopardizing aid workers, thousands of civilians.

    • Julia Conley: [08-19] Thousands kick off DNC with protest in Chicago over Gaza.

    • Rob Eshman: [08-23] Kamala Harris did the impossible, and said exactly the right thing about Israel and Gaza: "The Democratic candidate finally spoke about her position on Israel's war against Hamas -- and revealed her pragmatism." I voiced my disagreements with her speech above, but here let me note that I'm a bit touched that someone bought it, hook, line and sinker. I thought I recognized the author, so I searched and found I had cited him once before (back on June 2, in similar -- and thus far in vain -- praise for Democratic sagacity):

    • David Freedlander: [08-22] The convention that wasn't torn apart over Gaza: "Democrats packed a pro-Israel party, while the Palestinian side didn't even get a speaking slot."

    • Emma Janssen: [08-23] Uncommitted delegates denied a DNC speaker: "A sit-in outside the convention in protest and support from numerous elected officials did not succeed."

    • Adam Johnson:

      • [08-17] 4 talking points used to smear DNC protesters -- and why they're bogus: I think the fourth point here is basically true: "Harris can't support the activists' demands even if she wanted to. She's the vice president and must maintain President Biden's policies." I'm not sure what precedents there are for vice presidents breaking radically with presidents -- at least since early days when the VP could be a president's worst enemy (e.g., John Calhoun, twice) but it's generally bad form for any candidate to undermine an active president's foreign policy options (although Nixon and Reagan did it surrepetitiously). But also, if Harris wants to do something, wouldn't she have a better chance of working her plans through the Biden administration, rather than breaking with it?

      • [08-23] Celebrating at the DNC in a time of genocide.

    • Akela Lacy/Ali Gharib: Kamala Harris mentioned Palestinian suffering -- in the passive voice.

    • Joshua Leifer: [08-20] 'The Uncommitted movement did a service to the Democratic Party': "As the Democrats' convention begins, political strategist Waleed Shahid discusses the possibilities for shifting the party on Israel-Palestine."

    • Natasha Lennard: [08-20] Democratic Party united under banner of silence on Gaza genocide: "Progressives and moderates came together to support Kamala Harris by largely ignoring the most pressing moral issue of our time."

    • Branko Marcetic: [08-22] Palestinians received both harassment and support at the DNC.

    • Mitchell Plitnick: [08-23] Message from the DNC: The Democrats do not care about Palestinians: "The Democratic National Convention did not go well for supporters of Palestinian rights where Democrats were largely successful in burying their deep complicity in the Gaza genocide."

    • Hafiz Rashid: The black mark on the Democrats' big party: "Palestinian-Americans and their allies were left alienated by a convention that went out of its way to give them a slap in the face."

    • April Rubin: [08-22] Democrats refused to give Palestinian Americans DNC speaking slot.

    • Norman Solomon: [08-20] What got lost in the DNC's love fest for a lame duck.

Harris:

  • Frank Bruni: [08-22] Kamala Harris just showed she knows how to win.

  • John Cassidy: [08-26] Kamala Harris and the new Democratic economic paradigm: "At their Convention in Chicago last week, the Democrats looked like a party that is unusually united in its goals."

  • Jonathan Chait: [08-16] Kamala Harris's economic plan: good politics, meh policy: "It's hard to tell people they're wrong about inflation." Although Chait tries hard, mostly by bringing his own wrong-headed ideas about inflation.

  • Maureen Dowd: [08-23] Kamala came to slay.

  • Richard Fausset, et al.: [08-23] What voters outside the Democratic bubble thought of Harris's speech: Most interesting thing here is the lengths they (five authors here) have to go to find "out-of-bubble" voters, and how disconnected they are from anything resembling reality.

  • Katie Glueck: [08-24] Why Harris's barrier-breaking bid feels nothing like Hillary Clinton's. Maybe having multiple checklist identity groups seems like too much bother, but more likely she just seems like a real person, not some kind of idealized pathbreaking icon -- not that Clinton was all that ideal.

  • Fred Kaplan: [08-23] Trump should be very nervous about this part of Kamala Harris' DNC speech: "She's uniquely prepared to step up to the job of commander in chief." I don't know whether Trump is smart enough to grasp any of this, but it's making me nervous:

    Its emergence Thursday night was so striking that Wall Street Journal columnist (and former GOP speechwriter) Peggy Noonan [link below] complained that the Dems "stole traditional Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their own." Noonan misstates what's been happening in the era of Donald Trump. The fact is, the Republicans have abandoned those themes, and the Democrats -- who never rejected them -- are picking them up, with intensity, as part of a broad rescue mission. Democracy, freedom, equality, and community -- concepts so deeply embedded in American politics that their validity has long gone unquestioned -- are "on the ballot" in this election. The same is true of national security, and so the DNC's strategists elevated it too from a common cliché to a cherished value and vital interest under threat from the cult of personality surrounding Trump.

    Some quoted parts of the speech I find bone-chilling, like:

    • "As commander in chief, I will ensure America has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world."
    • "I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump . . . They know Trump won't hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself."
    • "I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself . . . At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating."
    • "I helped mobilize a global response -- over 50 countries -- to defend [Ukraine] against Putin's aggression."

    That gives her a score of about 85 on a scale of American cliché jingoism, but the admission on Gaza suggests that she can recognize facts and limits, so she might be willing to adjust to deal with them. I can't swear that she's free of the gratuitous hawkishness that Hillary Clinton overcompensated in. It may even be possible that she needs this armada of clichés to maintain her credibility when/if she does think better of some doomed trajectory that the rest of the blob is senselessly stuck on.

    As I must have made clear by now, I think that Biden's foreign policy has been a colossal mistake on nearly every front, and a disaster on many, with more potential disasters lined up as far as one can see. The whole paradigm needs a serious rethink, which is hard to see happening because everyone in a position to be consulted is there precisely because they've committed to the old, increasingly dysfunctional paradigm -- one that's been locked in by business and political interest groups (notably including Israel) that profit from the status quo, and profit even more when disaster strikes.

    I can see two ways to change. One is simply to back away from the strategies that have been failing and causing trouble -- let's call this (a). This approach will be ridiculed as "isolationism," but it could just as well be dressed up as Roosevelt's "good neighbor policy" -- just hold off the guns and judgment. The idea here is that if America gives up its global hegemon ambitions, other countries will follow suit, dramatically reducing the present tendencies for conflict. Conventional blob theorists hate this idea, and argue that any US retreat will result in a vacuum where "our enemies" will rush in to expand their hegemony.

    The (b) alternative to this is for the US to use its current dominant position as bargaining chips to negotiate military draw downs elsewhere and development of international organization to provide order and cooperation in place of power projection.

    Given a choice between politicians advocating (a) or (b), I'd go with (a), because it's simpler and clearer, both easier to state and to implement. The problem with (b) is that it involves misdirection and bluffing, and so is corrosive of trust. But (b) could be the better solution, if you have the patience and skill to see it through. Still, you don't have to do either/or. You can carve out sensible steps from column (a) and from column (b).

    I have little faith that someone as tightly integrated into the blobthink world as Harris seems to be will do either, but she might be just what's needed for (b). There is at least one historical example of a politician who was enough of an insider to gain power, but who then used that power to change direction radically. This was Mikhail Gorbachev. You can debate about how successful he was, and much more. And for sure, there's little reason to think Harris would (or could) pull a similar switch. But there is some similarity in the problems, and in the sclerotic thinking that made both cases seem so intractable.

    In any case, Harris is doing what she needs to do: she is reassuring the "deep state" powers that she can be trusted as one of them. Beyond that, all she has to do is show voters that she's smarter and more sensible than Trump. That's really not very hard to do. Hoping for more in the short period left before the election is rather foolish. She shouldn't risk stirring up potential opponents. Nor does she really need, say, a groundswell of pro-Palestinian support. All she has to do into November is stay better than Trump. Later on, of course, the situation will change. As president, she'll have to face and fix real problems, and not just the polling ones that have bedeviled others.

    • Peggy Noonan: [08-23] Kamala Harris gets off to a strong start: "Her DNC speech was fine, but the race remains a toss-up. It's all going to come down to policy." I originally had the Noonan link in situ above, but brought it down here to share the title and subhed, which are pretty funny.

    • Zack Beauchamp: [08-23] The moment when Kamala Harris's speech came alive: "The Democratic nominee got foreign policy -- and especially Israel-Palestine -- right." I found this after the Kaplan piece, which it largely recapitulates, so I dropped it in here. I've also talked about her Israel/Gaza take already (see James Carden).

  • Errol Louis: [08-24] Kamala Harris and the new politics of joy.

  • Carlos Lozada: [08-22] The shifting convictions of Kamala Harris. A former book review editor, goes back to her previous books: Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer (2009), and The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019), both written in times when her political horizons were expanding.

  • Jim Newell: [08-23] Kamala Harris showcased a quality at the DNC that Donald Trump never has.

  • Andrew Prokop: [08-23] Kamala Harris just revealed her formula for taking down Trump: "She cited three familiar issues -- but with new twists."

  • Greg Sargent: [08-23] Kamala's harsh takedown of Trump points the way to a post-MAGA America: "In her speech, the vice president made real overtures to non-Democrats. But she also insisted that we must reject MAGA Republicanism whole cloth." I don't particularly like this way of framing her pitch. As with most political ideas -- "MAGA" is short for Trumpism, hinting at something that might survive the demise of its author -- it contains a large amount of aspiration. You can pick and choose which bits of aspiration you want to discredit and which can be co-opted. Harris's "many olive branches to right-leaning independents and Republican voters" shows that she understands this, not that she's demanding "whole cloth" conversion. But easier than fighting the ideas of MAGA is driving a wedge between them and the vehicle, Trump. The clever way to do this is to adopts some ideals, and turn them back on a very deficient Trump. Of course, that can be tricky, especially as many of us would be happier to see the whole edifice demolished.

    In a remarkable turn, Harris appears prepared to run precisely the aggressive, inspired campaign that combatting the rising forces of domestic authoritarianism requires. Her vision hints at a post-MAGA future that is fully faithful to liberal ideals -- freedom, autonomy, open societies, free and fair elections -- while also addressing dissatisfactions with American life, from economic precarity to feelings of physical insecurity, that are leading many into the temptations of illiberalism. Getting to that future, Harris and Walz appear to be saying, will require fully consigning MAGA to the dustheap of history where it belongs.

    But is this really what they're saying. While Harris/Walz may reflect liberal ideals -- and that seems to be why the idealist idiots (like Chait) are going gaga over the DNC -- they're pushing much more tangible programs, which aim to achieve levels of economic support and social cohesion that Republicans can't deliver, or even fake believing in. Also by Sargent (podcasts):

  • Peter Slevin: [08-23] Kamala Harris's "freedom" campaign: "Democrats' years-long efforts to reclaim the word are cresting in this year's Presidential race."

  • Michael Tomasky: [08-23] The female Obama? No. Kamala Harris is more than that. "Harris's speech united her party -- an incredible task if you consider where we were a month ago."

  • Nick Turse: What Kamala Harris meant by "most lethal fighting force" in her DNC speech.

  • Vox: Vox's guide to Kamala Harris's 2024 policies.

Walz:

Biden:

  • Andrew Marantz: [08-23] Why was it so hard for the Democrats to replace Biden? "After the President's debate with Trump, Democratic politicians felt paralyzed. At the DNC, they felt giddy relief. How did they do it?"

  • N+1 Editors: Hollow Man: Biden, the Democrats, and Gaza. Title explained here:

    In their recent book The Hollow Parties, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld describe the Republicans and Democrats as lacking in the internal organization that could, respectively, moderate extremist tendencies and mitigate elite capture. The two parties, they write, are "hard shells, marked with the scars of interparty electoral conflict, [which] cover disordered cores, devoid of concerted action and positive loyalties. . . . For all their array of activities, [they] demonstrate fundamental incapacities in organizing democracy." What we had in Biden was a hollow President, a figurehead with fundamental incapacity issues and little substance inside the shell. At best, Biden's hollowness contrasted powerfully with the great-man theory of the presidency embodied by Trump, and his reactivity made space for a resurgent electoral left. At worst, these qualities devolved into impotence, and Biden was revealed as a leader who simply couldn't lead.

    Although much of the article focuses on Biden's relationship with Israel ("the intensity of Biden's passion for Israel has been the great constant of his career -- perhaps the only one") the review of the administration's whole history is insightful and nuanced, with references to Franklin Foer's insider book, The Last Politician, that may make me reconsider shelving the book unread.

  • Charles Lane: [08-22] Biden's embarrassed silence on Afghanistan: Complaint is about his DNC speech, which the author feels should have touted withdrawal as a positive accomplishment. Indeed, it's something three previous presidents failed monumentally at. He deserves credit for recognizing that the decades-long had failed and needed to end. However, he ended it badly, not that Trump left him with many options, in large part because he never moved beyond the magical thinking that trapped the US in Afghanistan in the first place. One result was the PR fiasco, which marked the point where his approval ratings dipped under 50%, something he never overcame. So it's easy to see why he skipped over it.

    However, his failures with Afghanistan haven't ended there. He's fallen into the familiar American "sore loser" pattern, adopted first by Eisenhower in 1953 when he signed an armistice with North Korea but refused to call it peace, leaving a legacy of distrust and petty hostilities that continue to this day (a grudge held and fed for 71 years), as US sanctions have largely hobbled North Korea's development. (South Korea GDP per capita in 2022 was $32422, which is 22 times that of North Korea's $1430.) The US harbors grudges everywhere it has faced rejection and has left disappointed: Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Russia, and now Afghanistan. This usually takes the form of sanctions, which impose hardships on the people while more often than not solidifying the control of those countries' rulers. This proves two things: that regardless of wartime propaganda, the US never cared about the people, and that what it did care about was projecting its power (although with repeated failures, these days that might be more accurately defined as protecting its arms cartel -- the definition of "ally" these days is anyone who buys guns from the US, Israel and/or NATO, while "enemy" is anyone who shops elsewhere). Ironically, nothing signifies weakness like shunning countries that would gladly trade with us if we allowed them (e.g., Iran).

    The deal that turned Afghanistan over to the Taliban was negotiated by, or more accurately for, Trump, with zero concern for Afghans who had welcomed US occupation, let alone for any other Afghans, or really for anyone else. Trump's only concern was to postpone the retreat until after the 2024 election, and to minimize US casualties in the meantime. He made no effort to reconcile the Taliban with other parties, to protect civil rights of Afghans after the Taliban enters the government, to ensure that people who might want to emigrate would be free to do so, or to allow for postwar cooperation. In failing to even raise those issues, he signalled to the Afghans that they should come to their own accord with the Taliban, which they did in arranging their instant surrender.

    When Biden took over, he had little leverage left, but he also didn't use what he had, which was the promise of future cooperation to aid the Afghan people. Instead, he subscribed to the fantasy that the US-affiliated Afghans would fight on even without US aid, and delayed departure until the Taliban had completed their arrangements for assuming power, turning the actual departure into the chaos broadcast far and wide. Since then, all Biden has done has been to add Afghanistan to America's "shit list" of countries we sanction and shun.

    Once again, all we've shown to the world is our own hubris and pettiness. The Biden administration has made some serious effort to rethink domestic policy, moving it away from the high ideology of neoliberalism toward something where results matter, and have even come up with some results that do matter, but they've done the opposite in foreign policy, overcorrecting from the cynicism and corruption of "America First" (which was never more than "Trump First", as Trump's "America" seems to exclude everyone but his family and retainers) by reclaiming high moral ground, both to sanctify our own acts and opinions, and to castigate those who aren't sufficiently deferential to us. Unless you're an arms manufacturer or an oil company, the Biden foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster.

And other Democrats:

Trump:

Vance:

And other Republicans:

  • Stephanie Armour/McKenzie Beard: [08-22] Project 2025 would recast HHS as the federal Department of Life.

  • Nina Burleigh: [08-20] The con at the core of the Republican Party: "The conservative movement's total abandonment of even the appearance of principles has been decades in the making." Review of Joe Conason's new book, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism. Conason "devotes the first third of the book to some of the right-wing scammers 'corroded to the core' like [Roy] Cohn," only one degree of separation from Trump:

    A crucial representative of this attitude, according to Conason, was Roy Cohn, the red-baiting Joe McCarthy aide, New York power broker, and Mafia lawyer whose "philosophy of impunity" was so successful that it shaped right-wing politics for decades to come. His most apt pupil was Donald Trump, whom he represented in his later years. Cohn taught the younger Donald that "it was not only possible but admirable to lie, cheat, swindle, fabricate, then deny, deny, deny -- and get away with everything," Conason writes. As a lawyer, Cohn's motto was: Better to know the judge than to know the law. As a businessman, it was: Better to stiff creditors than pay bills; and always worthwhile to lie, bribe, steal, and swindle while never apologizing.

    The editors offered links to two older pieces relevant here:

  • Eli Clifton: [08-22] Ex-Rep. Gallagher [R-WS] psyched to 'leverage my network' for Palantir: "The China hawk will be cashing in on public service to work for a major defense contractor."

  • Juleanna Glover: [08-26] Republican donors: do you know where your money goes? At some point, wouldn't you expect that even rich people, even those most flattered by solicitations catering to their prejudices, would tire of getting hounded and scammed by this corrupt system. This is worth quoting at some length:

    Anyone who has spent time reviewing Donald Trump's campaign spending reports would quickly conclude they're a governance nightmare. There is so little disclosure about what happened to the billions raised in 2020 and 2024 that donors (and maybe even the former president himself) can't possibly know how it was spent.

    Federal Election Commission campaign disclosure reports from 2020 show that much of the money donated to the Trump campaign went into a legal and financial black hole reportedly controlled by Trump family members and close associates. This year's campaign disclosures are shaping up to be the same. Donors big and small give their hard-earned dollars to candidates with the expectation they will be spent on direct efforts to win votes. They deserve better.

    During the 2020 election, almost $516 million of the over $780 million spent by the Trump campaign was directed to American Made Media Consultants, a Delaware-based private company created in 2018 that masked the identities of who ultimately received donor dollars, according to a complaint filed with the F.E.C. by the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. How A.M.M.C. spent the money was a mystery even to Mr. Trump's campaign team, according to news reports shortly after the election. . . .

    A.M.M.C.'s first president was reported to be Lara Trump, the wife of Mr. Trump's son Eric. The New York Times reported that A.M.M.C. had a treasurer who was also the chief financial officer of Mr. Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, signed off on the plan to set up A.M.M.C., and one of Eric Trump's deputies from the Trump Organization was involved in running it.

    Ms. Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, which, soon after her arrival, announced it would link up with the Trump campaign for joint fund-raising. The joint entity prioritizes a PAC that pays Mr. Trump's legal fees over the R.N.C., The Associated Press has reported, making assurances from Mr. Trump's campaign co-manager that R.N.C. funds wouldn't be used to pay Mr. Trump's legal bills seem more hollow.

    One thing I'm curious about is why someone supposedly as rich as Trump would get so invested in what are effectively petty cons -- I'm not denying that the money at stake in his media company, these campaigns, and his son-in-law's hedge fund doesn't add up to serious, but how are things like selling bibles and NFTs worth the trouble? Speaking of campaign finance, I clicked on this "related" article:

    • Richard W Painter: [2016-02-03] The conservative case for campaign-finance reform: Old article, clicked on because I can imagine there being such a case, one that would appeal to people who think they are conservatives, and who think conservatism is an honest and thoughtful philosophy that should appeal to enough people to win fair elections. I even think that the most likely way we could get serious campaign finance reform would be if some Republican takes this sort of argument and uses it to guilt-trip Democrats and a few more Republicans to support it.

      As you may recall, Obama's fervor for campaign finance reform faded after he saw how much more money he could raise in 2008 than McCain -- a feat he repeated in 2012 against the more moneyed Romney. However, even when Republicans started losing their cash advantage -- cultivated with such slavish devotion to business interests -- they cling to unlimited spending, because they love the graft, but also they've seen opportunities to paint Democrats as hypocrites and scoundrels for cutting into their share. But mostly, no matter how much they like to quote Burke (and in this case, Goldwater and McCain), their staunchest belief is in inequality, which these days is denominated in dollars.

  • Patrick Healy: [08-26] Harris has the momentum. But Trump has the edge on what matters most. Author is Deputy Opinion Editor at the New York Times, the infamous "fake news" outlet that seems most desperate right now to bolster Trump's candidacy, or at least revitalizing the horse race. Still, not much here to actually define "what matters most. Consider:

    Defining the race: Harris wants to make the race about the future, freedom and unity; Trump wants to make the race about the past, his presidency and threats to the country.

    Does he really think that Harris would be troubled having to talk about "the past, [Trump's] presidency, and threats to the country" -- you know, like more of what Trump did during his presidency? Having so flailed himself, Healy turned to:

    • Rich Lowry: [08-26] Trump can win on character: I clicked on this because I like a good joke as much as anyone, but does Lowry (or Healy?) understand how funny the very idea is? He may be right that "presidential races are won and lost on character as much as the issues," though not that "often the issues are proxies for character" -- more often "character" is used as a mask for poor issues (and is most effective when it also masks poor character -- cf. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton, and Trump, all of whom were packaged to hide reality). Still:

      Mr. Trump's campaign has been shrewd to begin to hold smaller, thematic-focused events rather than just set him loose at rallies, where there is the most opportunity for self-sabotaging riffs.

      By what possible definition is this proof of his superior character?

    • Thomas B Edsall: [08-21] Trump isn't finished: The publisher's title fits this here, but the substance should stand nicely on its own. Edsall mostly quotes various eminences on the severe threat a second Trump term would present to Amermica and what we still think of as democracy:

      • Sean Wilentz: "Trump, who does not speak in metaphors, had made it plain: 'If I don't get elected, it's going to be a blood bath.'"
      • Laurence Tribe
      • Julie Wronski
      • Bruce Cain: "Trump is more erratic, impulsive, and self-interested than your average candidate and is much bolder than most in testing the boundaries of what he can get away with."
      • Timothy Snyder
      • Charles Stewart
      • Julian Zelizer
      • Jacob Hacker
      • Frances Lee
      • Eric Shickler
      • Robert Y Shapiro
      • Gary Jacobson: "[The biggest difference] will be the absence of officials in the administration with the stature, experience, and integrity to resist Trump's worst instincts in such matters."

    • Patrick Healy: [08-23] Joy is not a strategy.

  • Nicholas Kristof: [08-24] Republicans are right: one party is 'anti-family and anti-kid'.

Election notes:

Legal matters and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

  • Richard Heinberg: [08-25] 7 steps to what a real renewable energy transition looks like: "Historically, an overhaul for humanity's energy system would take hundreds or many thousands of years. The rapid shift to cleaner, more sustainable sources of power generations will easily be the most ambitious enterprise our species has ever undertaken." Glad to see this, as I've read several of Heinberg's books, although none since 2009's Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, preceded by 2007's Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. That was back in the Oil Drum era (see Wikipedia"), when Hubbert's peak seemed to be kicking in, before secondary extraction techniques like fracking became cost-effective enough to allow oil and gas production to increase from previously depleted or marginal fields. I read quite a bit on this and related subjects back then. I was especially taken by a chart from one of his books (float right; top: "world oil production from 1600 to 2200, history and projection"; bottom: "world population from 1600 to 2200, history and projection, assuming impacts from depletion"), although I could think of plenty of reasons why the post-peak decline would not be as sharp or perilous (including enhanced secondary recovery.

    I don't have time now, but could probably write quite a bit about this piece. For now, I'll note that I basically agree with his first two section heads: "Why this is (so far) not a real transition" and "The core of the transition is using less energy." His concrete proposals are more troubling, especially those that overreach politically (like rationing and "triage"). "Aim for population decline" seems both politically perilous and unnecessary, given that current projections are that world population will stabilize within 30-60 years. We have major challenges accommodating the population we have (or will have), but reducing the number of people doesn't make the task easier -- and given most ways population has been reduced in the past, may make matters much worse.

  • Benji Jones: [08-22] This chart of ocean heat is terrifying: "The Gulf's looming hurricane problem, explained in a simple graph."

Economic matters:

Ukraine War and Russia:

America's empire and the world:

  • Afyare A Elmi/Yusuf Hassan: [08-26] The coming war nobody is talking about: Ethiopia has been land-locked since Eritrea broke away as an independent country, and their prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, doesn't like it. Part of the problem here is that Somalia is effectively divided, with its northern (formerly British) wedge broken free of its nominal central government in Mogadishu.

  • Joshua Keating: [08-19] Armed conflict is stressing the bones of the global economy: "From shipping lanes to airspace to undersea cables, globalization is under physical attack."

  • Sarang Shidore: [08-21] Dangerous China-Philippine clashes could be expanding: "Serious incidents in the South China Sea are spreading well beyond the Second Thomas Shoal, pulling the US in deeper."

  • Aaron Sobczak: [08-21] Fewer Americans willing to fight and die for other countries: Probably fewer for their own, too, as various forces -- capitalism is a pretty major one -- lead people to focus on individual interests, downplay their group affiliations, and suspect states of being subject to corrupt influences. As lives grow longer and richer, it's getting harder to justify sacrificing one for war, especially as the cost-benefit analysis of war only grows grimmer. Even if the democratic left manages to stem the trend toward hyper-individualism by restoring a sense of public interest, it won't make war more attractive.

    I've been thinking about this a bit while watching pre-modern war culture dramas, like Shōgun and House of the Dragon. The fealty warriors repeated express toward their "lords" is all but unthinkable today, when everyone thinks they're self-interested. But if the alternatives are primitive atomism (individuals, small packs, or clans) and organized bandits. The latter, through cooperation, can be so much more efficient that the rest have no alternative but to organize their own collective defenses. There's more to this, of course, like the argument that the Axial Age religions were efforts to moderate the period's massive increase in warfare.

  • Military-Industrial Complex:

Other stories:

  • Current Affairs:

    • [07-14] Jeffrey Sachs on why US foreign policy is dangerously misguided: "How US presidents from Clinton to Trump to Biden squandered chances to establish a lasting peace in the post-Cold War era."

    • [08-14] Why you will never retire: "Economist Teresa Ghilarducci on why some 90-year-old Americans are pushing shopping carts in the heat trying to make ends meet." She has a book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy. "She shows how the pension system disappeared, why Social Security isn't enough, and explains how even the concept of retirement is beginning to disappear, with many arguing that work is good for you, people should do it for longer." As always, much depends on what kind of work you do. I've been effectively retired for 20+ years now, but what that means is that I've been able to afford to do things I want to do, free of having to spend a big chunk of my life toiling for nothing better than making someone else money. I've been very fortunate in that regard. A more generous retirement system would help more people do socially worthwhile work like I do, even if it doesn't contribute to the great GDP fetish. It would also help people avoid doing useless and/or senseless work, of which there is way too much required these days, just because someone has figured out how to turn a profit from it.

    • [08-22] The extreme danger of dehumanizing rhetoric: "David Livingstone Smith, one of the world's leading scholars of dehumanization, explains what it is, why we're so prone of it, and how to resist it." Author of books like:

    • Nathan J Robinson:

      • [08-05] How empires think: "The imperial mentality sanctions some of the worst imaginable crimes in the name of progress, enlightenment, and civilization."

      • [08-07] An encouraging sign: "Choosing Tim Walz as a vice presidential nominee shows Kamala Harris has good political instincts. But what matters is policy, and we should demand real commitments."

      • [08-12] Politics should not be parasocial: "These are not our dads or aunts. We are electing a head of state who will wield immense power and control a massive nuclear arsenal. 'Policy' is not peripheral or dispensable, it's the only thing that really matters." Critique of an Atlantic article on Kamala Harris -- Tom Nichols: [08-19] Policy isn't going to win this election: "The Harris campaign seems to have grasped an important reality" -- which may in turn have led to the Giridharadas kerfuffle below (I'm reaching them in opposite order, and the point doesn't seem worth fact checking). I lean toward Robinson here, but that's largely because I think writers who focus on political policy should take care to get the policy right, regardless of the politics. (If you get the policy right, you can conceivably steer the politics toward it; but if you take the politics as a given, you're very unlikely to get to the right policy.)

        Nichols says that it's a myth that Americans care about policy. But perhaps the opposite is true. I think the very reason that so many Americans are disillusioned with politics is that they don't see how it affects them. If you went around this country and you asked everyone you saw how much attention to politics they pay, and why they don't pay more attention, I guarantee you you'll get many variations on an answer roughly like: None of these politicians ever actually do anything for us, they just care about themselves, they don't care about us, look at my community, what have the politicians ever done for us?

        I've only read the first two paragraphs of the Nichols piece (paywalls, you know). He may well have a point -- it's a truism among political consultants that voters rarely go deep into policy details, and often respond to non-policy signals, voting with an emotional hunch over reasoned analysis. Still, no matter how much politicians and journalists try to dodge them, policy positions do matter, and in a broad sense are likely to be decisive.

      • [08-15] Panic about immigrants is based on feeling and emotion: "Christopher Rufo visited Britain and saw non-white people, leading him to conclude that civilization is being hollowed out."

      • [08-25] On the role of emotion in politics: "A response to MSNBC's Anand Giridharadas, who thinks I am not fun. . . . His reply was quite personal, and he even placed a picture of me next to a picture of Lil Jon to illustrate how much less fun I seem." Seems like an unnecessary response to a charge that has no reason for being, but as a writer who can only imagine how his readers misinterpret him, I concede a bit of interest in such things.

    • Alex Skopic:

    • K Wilson: [04-01] Why the right constantly panics over societal 'decadence': "No, 'Western society' has not fallen from some mythic elevated past. But such right-wing views are appealing, and the left needs an answer to them if we want to avoid being pushed back into traditional hierarchies."

  • Arwa Mahdawi: [08-22] Stop using the term 'centrist'. If doesn't mean what you think it does: "If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy, wrote Orwell. That applies today more than ever." My eyes glaze over when I see Orwell, so I can't tell you what that's about. And while there's plenty to say about the dysfunctionality of "centrism" -- it mostly seems to mean that you would like to see some nicer things happening, but aren't willing to do anything to make it happen that might offend the rich -- the actual examples given here are mostly from Israel. A couple are grimly (or sickeningly) amusing:

    This narrative is so entrenched that people don't believe their eyes when it comes to Palestinians. Last October, the actor Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo on Instagram showing terrified-looking children peering up at the sky. She captioned the post "terror from the skies" with an Israel flag emoji. When it was pointed out that the kids were Palestinian, she deleted the post. Her eyes may have told her that those innocent children were terrified; the narrative, however, was more complicated.

    Around the same time, Justin Bieber posted a photo of bombed houses with the caption "praying for Israel." When it was pointed out the picture was of Gaza, he deleted it and apparently stopped praying.

  • Timothy Noah: [2022-02-10] Washington is not a swamp: "Ignore the lazy conventional wisdom. The nation's capital is the most public-spirited city in the country. By far." Not sure why this piece popped up suddenly, but it remains relevant, especially with the pending Trump/Project 2025 plan to purge the civil service and replace them with political hacks. This reminds me that one of the best political books to appear during the Trump years was Michael Lewis: The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy, about "a government under attack by its leaders through willful ignorance and greed." Still, whenever I heard the phrase "drain the swamp," I automatically assumed that the subject was lobbying corruption, which is rife in Washington, even though Trump using it as such was certainly hypocritical -- I always assumed that, like Tom DeLay's K Street Project, his real aim was to take the racket over, to skim his vig. That he meant it as code for the civil service was unthinkable, yet that's clearly what he means.

  • Maya Wei-Haas: [08-26] Dismantling the ship that drilled for the ocean's deepest secrets: "The JOIDES Resolution, which for decades was key to advancing the understanding of the Earth and its innards, concluded what could be its final scientific expedition."

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