[A] I have very little insight into the politico-sociology of country music here in America, let alone in Europe, where language issues come into play. ("Americana" does seem to be exceptionally popular in the UK, but that lines up nicely with 1970s "pub rock.") While Christianity and jingoistic patriotism have long been saluted in Nashville, and nods in that direction sometimes get picked up by right-wing media, there has always been a subversive undercurrent in country music, as with virtually all modern forms of art. I grew up in country music country, and absorbed a lot of it, even when I thought I was rebelling against it. Friends like Harold Karabell and George Lipsitz got me to give it a chance, and these days I find about as much human interest and trenchant social commentary there as anywhere else. The notion that country music is stereotypically white ultimately means very little, if it's even true at all. (Plus, nobody likes getting stereotyped.)

I'm not aware of any research on this, but my impression is that right-wingers aren't all that interested in music, or in any form of art. I don't wish to be smug or condescending about this. It may just be that, even living in Kansas where they dominate politics, I know or even encounter very few right-wingers, and that the few I do run into aren't representative. But they're a pretty dull and unpleasant sort. Sure, some country music sinks to their level, but I doubt even they enjoy it.

Briefly, on the other items: I wrote up the "1,000 albums" piece in 2009, and added a few items later, so now it's a bit over 1,000: new albums do make the mark, although my increasingly superficial listening habits make it hard these days to find new music that I love as much as the music I grew up on. I see now that the last revision was in 2020, so perhaps another is due.

As for Speaking of Which, it just got to be too much. I've thought about quitting many times, but as the 2024 election approached, I felt obligated to see it through. Even if the results had been better, I would most likely have decided to give it up. But this backsliding into an even darker version of 2017 is just too much self-torture. While I am thankful that I have readers who appreciate what I've been doing, I'm not filled with the sense that I'm really accomplishing much. And at my age, I don't have to keep doing this, or figure out how to restart. Also, the sense of isolation is taking a toll. It's time for some kind of change.

[A] It is updated every time the website is updated, which is usually when I put a new blog post up. I make a few minor changes to it virtually every day, so in that sense it is always changing. Bigger chunks of work, like going through the AOTY new releases lists to collect ratings, and going through their publication lists to pick up late ratings, have been much more erratic. While it was in pretty decent shape through the mid-year lists, I let it slide after that. But as the first EOY lists have started to appear, I'm getting back into it -- although I'm still very busy with other "higher priority" things. I doubt this year's efforts will ever be as comprehensive as some past years. Getting harder and harder to keep everything going.

I should note that one way to track updates could be the RSS feed, but mine is hand-crafted, and I haven't gotten into the practice of updating it when I make minor changes (which, for some files, is practically daily, or weekly to you). As I'm writing this, I can think of some ways to automate reporting of changes, possibly including line differences (through the old UNIX diff program), but they all involve new programming, unlikely in the short term.

[A] I've written about three GOAT albums (all favorable, and well before your mail), one by The Black Angels (favorable, from 2010), and two by Kali Malone (once before, once after, neither glowing). The "Google Search" form should be able to find you the reviews. I can't say as I remember anything beyond the names at this point.

[A] I wasn't aware that there were any, but when I checked, there were a couple unchecked items in the "shopping list" database, and a couple more I hadn't noted. I started streaming around 2008, and that radically reduced the cost of trying things out, especially things that seemed iffy. I disliked Wilson's 1988 album, and since then only Presents Smile (2004) won any sort of critical favor. Still, Wilson had special significance for me. That I ever became a rock critic was mostly due to Don Malcolm, who was a huge Wilson fan. Tom Smucker, who wrote Why the Beach Boys Matter is also a personal friend, and he matters too. So I went back and checked on a couple of missing items, but they weren't very good, and my records are still incomplete. Enough for now. But back in 2013, I did go back for the Beach Boys' early albums (pre-Pet Sounds), which I knew and (mostly) loved from singles and compilations, most notably the canonical 2-LP (later 1-CD) Endless Summer.

PS: I got another one from this person: "I would love to see your reviews and gradings of the Deep Purple albums you own." That one's easy. That doesn't guarantee that I never heard any -- as I recall, many friends from the early 1970s had one or two of their albums, but nobody I knew played them, and in my pre-critic days, I never saw the point. And when I did, and my aims became more encyclopedic, I had more promising avenues for my time. I still do.

[A] Aside from some major rhythm masters, I've never been much into solo piano, although I'm pretty sure that I have A-listed a couple dozen exceptions over the years, including Jarrett's The Köln Concert, his big commercial breakthrough from 1975. Even there, I'm pretty sure that I was never got into the original 1.5-LP set I had, only warming to it when I got the whole thing in one straight shot on CD. Even if the five Sun Bear Concerts were as good as the one in Köln, that's a lot of work for variations I'm unlikely to appreciate anyway. I did go back recently and listen to 1973's Bremen/Lausanne, and it's also real good. And I've heard a fair number of later solo albums, all more/less good, none great enough to really single out. Streaming Sun Bear Concerts is probably possible (some big chunks are also on YouTube, but unless I get some reason to go completist, it's just too much for me.

If you're excited by solo piano, you may find The Penguin Guide to be especially useful, as Morton and/or Cook are totally besotted by the stuff. I find they're pretty dependable for sorting among solo piano albums, even if I think they overvalue them in general.

PS: I did play the YouTube link above, and it's really good, without being a retread of The Köln Concert.

[A] I, too, was taken aback the first time I read a rave about major Brecker was. I forget where, but this quote from Stuart Nicholson's 1990 book, Jazz: The 1980s Resurgence, gives you the flavor, naming Brecker as "the most influential saxophonist since John Coltrane," and adding that "any aspiring saxophonist was forced to take account of his tone, technique, energy and his harmonic methodology." I don't have the technical skills or interest to weigh in on half of that, but after going back for a refresher on several albums I had missed, the other half strikes me as good but not really exceptional. If I had to play a ratings game, I'd say that among somewhat similar players his peak performances would rate above Bob Mintzer, but below Chris Potter.

Two of Brecker's better albums are Time Is of the Essence (1998) and Pilgrimage (2006) -- I have them both at B+(**). I don't recommend anything by the Brecker Bros., although "Heavy Metal Be-Bop" and "Some Skunk Funk" appealed to me as concepts. He did a huge amount of studio work, and has side credits on some good-to-great rock and soul (James Brown, John Lennon, Paul Simon, Carly Simon, Steely Dan, Parliament/Funkadelic, Chaka Khan, Lou Reed, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Manu Dibango, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Blue Oyster Cult, Average White Band, Chic, Garland Jeffreys, Luther Vandross, the list goes on and on, even includes Willie Nelson and Andreas Vollenweider). Also looks like he played on 50+ other jazz albums -- probably some good records in there somewhere, but not much jumps out at me. (He did one with Mintzer called Twin Tenors, but I haven't heard it.)

PS: I've generally found that anyone who has a huge reputation deserves at least some of it, on some level, if you give them a fair chance. Sure, there are styles, or maybe just quirks, that one dislikes so much no such effort is possible, but it's easy to understand that as your problem, no reflection on the musician. I'm also aware that I tend to react skeptically to exorbitant hype. Charlie Parker was one case that took me a long time to reconcile, but in the end, I could point to examples that both explain the hype and confirm my skepticism.

But Brecker isn't a case like that. No doubt he's technically a good tenor saxophonist, and I'm inclined to grant that he's reliable even when the music around him isn't up to snuff (which is way too often). To understand this better, you'll have to look at who's hyping him, and try to figure out why. I recognize that there are some examples of people making extravagant claims for Brecker, but the first point to make here is that there aren't many people doing so. Penguin Guide, for instance, gives him a lot of 3-stars, but no 4-stars. Parker worship, on the other hand, is almost universal.

[A] I've always listed him under the broad category of rock, following Drive-By Truckers, and I've never thought about him enough to rethink that. But throwing the 'C' flag was easy enough, so I tried it. Put him in the number 1 spot on the C-F-A list, which I find a little creepy, but happens with genre-crossing. (Do metal fans agree that my top EOY-listed metal albums are real metal? I doubt it.)

Why I threw "Americana" on the end of "Country-Folk" is somewhat mysterious. Probably because my view of Country is broader than the Nashville-Austin axis, and that's where the outliers get slotted, but I wouldn't want the definition to creep into including such Americana-ish rockers as Mellencamp, Springsteen, and Neil Young.

[A] I seriously doubt that I ever "equate[d] Hamas with the Palestinian people," or that I ever would. That would be a category error, and a particularly grave one, given that's exactly what Israel's leaders are doing when they claim to be fighting Hamas but are actually inflicting collective punishment on Palestinians in Gaza. Perhaps I let my guard down and spoke imprecisely. It would, for instance, have been snappier to just write "Israel" instead of "Israel's leaders" just now, but people don't think and move in unison, even when their state does.

But at least in Israel, there is a sort of democratic process, one that promotes leaders from a broad class of people (limited as it is to Jewish citizens of Israel). Whether it's fair to blame people for the leaders they elect is debatable, but where there is no free, informed choice, how can that be helped? Palestinians have never been able to choose their own leaders: either outsiders picked them (as the British did in picking Haj Amin al-Husseini in 1920), or they fought their way to power (as Hamas did in Gaza in 2006).

I'm no expert on Hamas, but what little I know hasn't made me very sympathetic. But it's hard to think of any Palestinian leaders who have served their people well. Most obviously, they've always been late at conceding points Israel had previously claimed, but by then Israelis, with their relentless pursuit of "facts on the ground," had moved on. Abba Eban famously quipped that Palestinians "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace," but it's doubtful Israel ever offered any such opportunities. Even when hinted at -- e.g., 1967's "land for peace" promise; 1979's pledge for Palestinian "autonomy"; the 1993 Oslo Accords -- they were never serious, and always found excuses.

You can't really claim much credit for Israeli leaders either. Sure, David Ben-Gurion did a remarkable job of building his power base in the Yishuv (the Jewish community in mandatory Palestine), and raising it to independent statehood. But he wasn't satisfied with Israel's borders in 1950, and he left the country divided and poisoned, leading to a series of expansionist and exclusionary wars, up to the present day.

But to get back to your question, between Hamas and Israel as options, I'd have to the US would be better off dealing with Hamas. It's hard to see how that might work, given that the US is insanely phobic about Hamas, and not just because Israel seems to be able to run Washington as a sock puppet. But a tilt toward Hamas would give Israel pause, which is especially important now that Israel is doing immense damage to its standing in the world by even flirting with genocide. And because chances of negotiation are improved when you give the weaker party a bit more leverage. (And I'm not suggesting that the US give Hamas "blank check" support. Just some legitimacy so it can advance reasonable proposals that Israel could actually agree to.)

Moreover, why shouldn't Americans get a little ticked off by how contemptuously Israel treats us? Including how blatantly Israel interferes in our elections? Maybe if they sensed some risk, they'd act a bit more circumspect.

As for the charges that Hamas is "a criminal enterprise" and "a beard for Iran," sure, that's something some people are saying. For instance, I found an article on NBC that makes those points (not very convincingly, as I discuss in today's Speaking of Which). Iran never had the slightest interest in Palestine, even ten years after the 1979 revolution and the US hostage crisis, until Israel decided it could manage Americans better by playing on their grudge against the Ayatollahs. (Trita Parsi details this in his 2007 book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States.) Since then, Iran may offer occasional words and support to Hamas, but not much, and Hamas has no reason to toe Tehran's line.

As to the "criminal organization" line, that's true of lots of states, especially ones that aren't democratically elected, but all the more so here because Hamas has literally been outlawed by the US and its allies around the world. Still, trade and capital flows are so tightly regulated around Gaza that they have to hide what they're doing. Still, it's hard to believe that their actual graft amounts to much. If it did, why would they have risked it all by foolishly attacking Israel the way they did?

PS [2023-12-04]: Response, quoted last two lines, adding:

I'm not suggesting 'graft' per se. Hamas functions more akin to any criminal enterprise. Their 'business' is near global with governance as a sideline. There is little to no 'risk' involved. That activity will continue regardless of any outcome. In that sense the idea that Israel can eradicate Hamas is inane. Far easier to sacrifice the pawns (Palestinians) to accomplish Iranian goals.

The gains? The upside for both Hamas and Iran? Destabilization. Some great PR and, in the short term, the attacks certainly derailed any potential Saudi / Israeli agreements.

I have no information confirming any of this, other than the last line: Israel's extreme reaction has been terrible for their public standing, with the Saudi agreement a likely casualty; and given that the main purpose behind the Saudi agreement was for Israel to bless America selling more arms to the Saudis, that's probably gratifying for Iran.

But in the absence of information to the contrary, the best I can do is work from my understanding of how people and nations operate. So at this point all I can say is that I don't buy that Hamas and Iran are operating as you describe, mostly because it doesn't make sense to me that they would. I'm not so naive that I can exclude the possibility, and I'd even grant that it is probable that there are some bad actors on all sides. But it is also the case that Israel and their allies are producing enormous amounts of propaganda, something we should be very skeptical of. Especially when the intent is to distract from the core issue of the moment: genocide.

[A] Thanks for the concern. And questions have been scarce lately, so thanks for that, too. But no one needs me to tell you what to think about music you've already heard. Taste is way too variable to trust anyone's but your own. But I did belatedly check out the album, and wrote it up. Long story short, about a fourth of the album is Ornette, and it's instantly recognizable as such, brilliant here but scarcely noticeable had it been embedded in any of his dozen-or-more best albums. As for Howard Shore's soundtrack music, I don't recall complaining about it many years ago when I saw the movie, but I hardly ever find soundtrack music worthwhile on its own.

[A] First, I should clear up the biographical details. I majored in sociology for two years at Washington University, after transferring from Wichita State, where my major was philosophy. I never got a degree, and never did any work in sociology, social work, or anything remotely close. My actual interest was critical theory, so my approach to academic sociology was rather, well, critical.

I worked as a typesetter for several years after that. As I got more interested in computers, I got a job in software engineering at a company that made typesetting equipment. I had natural curiosity about how that equipment worked, and took advantage of opportunities to tackle increasingly technical jobs. This was the early 1980s, when hardly anyone had CS degrees, so most people were self-taught. That's probably changed, but back in my day people who studied CS carried IBM card stacks to be batch processed, and were pretty useless around microprocessors or any kind of hardware.

Still, I suspect a couple tips are still valid. First, read as much good code as possible. Second, find people who are really smart, and make yourself useful to them. They will, in turn, share much of what they know, and possibly open some doors for you. Your education will be obsolete a year or two after you start working, so you have to keep learning. I started working in a shop that had a UNIX source code license, so I could read everything, and my mentors included one of the architects of GECOS (which was a joint venture between GE and Bell Labs). It should be much easier to get breaks like that now: just find some free software to work on. Dig in, find and fix bugs, document and clean up code, come up with ideas to make it better, have them batted around (and often shot down), go back and repeat.

It helps to study the history and lore -- especially things like quality control and project management. You won't have to start as low down as I did -- even chip designers don't have to know how adders work these days -- but it helps to have a sense of the building blocks, how they interface, and where they break. Learn to debug, and not to fear it. I'm not great on that count, but the people who do it best are the best. I imagine AI is going to have a big impact on all this, but the only thing I am certain of is that it's going to create a lot of need for debuggers.

In the long run, I found I could apply insights I had learned in engineering to the study of societies and of political policies, but only if I fully appreciated the complexity of the subjects -- something I must have learned in my initial study of philosophy and sociology. Of course, it's impossible to tell whether my insights are right, because I'm in no position to test them, but it feels like the two worldviews complement each other.

[A] Probably not. Francis Davis has invited a couple dozen "broadcast journalists," so Rollins might be eligible on those grounds, but I have no way of vetting them: I never listen to radio, and even if I did my exposure would be local in a small market. I did add a couple of invites this year based purely on recommendations from other voters. Both Davis and I have solicited voter proposals, but we've rarely gotten anything from the public.

I think there's a general reluctance to invite musicians to participate. There have been a couple exceptions over the years (Duck Baker is probably the best known, but didn't vote this year; John Pietaro is the only one I recall who voted this year). Rollins seems like an outlier, but I don't doubt that there are dozens or maybe hundreds of non-jazz musicians who could be described that way.

I have little doubt that there are hundreds of fans out there who are as knowledgeable as our critics, and who could make a real contribution to the Poll. However, I'm stuck with the concept of a Critics Poll, as Davis originally defined it.

[A] Strange question for me, as I'm on record approximately 100% of the time the subject has come up as declaring that I hate/despise/can't stand Christmas music. I've probably graded 100 of the things, as I try to review everything concrete publicists send me (downloads are a different story), but most of the reviews start with such a declaration, and the grades drive home the point.

That said, I haven't received any Christmas music promos so far this year, which is probably the first year in the last 20. Perhaps that means that publicists are wising up to me, or perhaps it's a side-effect of the decline of promo budgets, or perhaps you're right. My first thought was to check Discogs, but they don't offer Christmas music as a genre or style. So I tried searching for "christmas music," then narrowed the search by decade and year. Just eyeballing a table of numbers, it looks like there's been a fairly steady decline from 1029 in 2014 to 860 in 2020. That continues to 737 in 2021 and 229 in 2022, but I suspect those numbers (especially 2022) reflect the delay in adding entries to the system. I consult Discogs often for new jazz releases, and a 2-3 month delay isn't uncommon. From 2000 to 2014, the lowest year is 940 (2012), and the max is 1273 (2003), with the average about 1100. I didn't table up the 1990s, but the average is comparable to the 2000s (1148 vs. 1130).

I can think of a half-dozen reasons for this long-term decline -- if, indeed, that's what it is, as I can also think of reasons the statistics might be skewed (e.g., maybe Discogs editors are becoming less vigilant?). I'll leave that to you, because I really don't care.

[A] I was aware of it when released, but I've never been that much into Jarrett's solo piano albums, and it seemed prohibitive at the time (I remembered long, but 10-LP is really over the top; I see it's now out in 6-CD, totaling 6:37:46). I did buy the 2-LP version of The Köln Concert, but never got into it until I bought a CD and was able to hear it straight through (66:07), at which point I was impressed enough to give it an A-. There are at least 20 solo Jarrett titles out, maybe more like 30. I've listened to a bunch of them, including 1971's Facing You. Aside from Köln, they're all various shades of B+: he's a really great pianist, even when I don't feel like listening to piano, which almost always happens before they're over.

There's probably some early Jarrett I'd like to catch up with, but I would deprioritize anything solo, and I don't think I could keep it together long enough to do justice to Sunbear. I'm starting to realize that my patience and inquisitiveness has limits, and this is probably one of them.

[A] I noticed Zeihan's book, but didn't look very closely at it. He has a previous book with several red flags in the title -- The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder (2014) -- and he runs a consulting firm, so he's not just in the business of diagnosing problems but also of peddling solutions. To describe the U.S. as an "accidental superpower" requires that one ignore a lot of evidence to the contrary (Stephen Wertheim: Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy is a recent example, although there are many more, including the Kolko books). Even before Pearl Harbor, there were prominent Americans angling to get into WWII and come out on top. Of course, it wasn't as easy as they imagined, but as long as the U.S. was willing to pay for alliances, most other countries were happy to follow.

Trump, with his insistence that NATO pay not just its own way but tribute, threatened to end that game, but America's will as well as its means has long been in decline, at least as far back as Nixon-Kissinger's gambits to prop up Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan as proxy powers (in short order, I might add, losing control of each; in Trump's day, the first two are tails wagging the dog, the others flaunting their independence and flirting with China).

Zeihan's new book is his fourth, following and recapitulating The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America (2017) and Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World (2020). The argument seems to be that with global order collapsing (because the U.S. can't sustain it, and no one else can step up) trade will decline and self-sufficiency and -defense will become more critical, which should be advantageous for Americans, if not for the rest of the world. And, of course, in the turbulence such changes create, it helps to have a global strategist to consult.

I can see some value in this analysis -- I think it's more accurate to start from the impossibility of world governance than to see world order as a contest for would-be superpowers -- but I also suspect there's quite a bit of bullshit, and an ulterior motive I don't much like. No doubt the devil's in the details. For instance, clearing shipping lanes isn't a big deal, unless you also want to use that power to limit a supposed enemy like Russia (or China), in which case it turns into something both difficult and dangerous. I have no idea where the line about "de-population" comes from, or why it matters, but it's the sort of thing a "global strategist" might drop into a PowerPoint slide.

By the way, the "shale revolution" of the 2nd book subtitle refers to how shale oil and gas allowed the U.S. to reach "energy independence" in recent years. The idea that once established that will remain the case is plainly ridiculous. At most, it buys you a stretch of time in which to replace oil and gas with renewable energy sources, so that as reserves are exhausted you won't need to find more.

[A] Well, energy prices are baked into everything manufactured, grown, and/or processed, as well as transportation, and oil and gas are still the largest source of energy, so sure, that's an easy explanation. And Biden's sanctions against Russia are meant to take one of the big three oil producers off the market, so they are the most obvious reason for supply falling short of demand, and that spells higher prices. But how effective have they really been? China and India are still buying lots of Russian oil, and the flow of gas to Europe never really stopped. Sure, there was a price bump when the war started, when speculators were encouraged to run up prices, but that has largely returned to normal. Then there's the problem that prices were already rising before Russia invaded Ukraine and the sanctions kicked in. During the pandemic, demand fell, so suppliers cut back on production -- something that happened all across the board, contributing to the supply chain problems we've seen as the economy has snapped back toward pre-pandemic levels. This rapid sequence of contraction then expansion created the perfect breeding ground for inflation everywhere. One notable example is rent, which has no direct relationship to energy prices. Rents were suppressed during the pandemic, creating a pent-up pressure to raise them as soon as demand increased.

And that's basically what's been happening. Companies aren't obligated to increase supply when demand increases. They only do so when they see an opportunity to profit more by making more, but as long as supply shortages are rewarded with higher prices (and profits), they really have little incentive to do anything else. (In this, OPEC is acting much as a company would.) We like to think markets are self-correcting, but they don't react all that quickly, especially when competition has been limited -- and if you've been following the renewed interest in antitrust lately (Barry C. Lynn's 2010 book Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction is a good place to start; a more recent book is David Dayen's Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power, from 2020), this will be obvious. We've created a perverse system where capitalists easily fail upwards.

But what does "Clueless Joe Biden" have to do with this? Mostly, the pandemic relief and post-pandemic stimulus programs left many people with increased savings (and staved off disaster for many more people), and that created a good deal of post-pandemic demand, which has been driving prices upwards. The programs also helped strengthen the labor market, which helped bolster wages (probably more than any time since 1980, which I'd count as a good thing even if it does contribute a bit to inflation). Some sort of recovery would have happened without Biden -- just one more skewed toward the rich, and consequently less robust, but given the framework I noted above, any recovery would have allowed prices to rise.

Where Biden is more culpable was in the run up to Putin's attack on Ukraine. I've argued elsewhere that the whole string of US presidents going back to Clinton have made sport of degrading and provoking Russia, and Biden probably looked worse than any of them because he hoped to rebuild US commitments to Europe that Trump had hadn't actually abandoned but had made a confused mess of. Chances are, Biden's closer embrace of Ukraine encouraged Zelensky to be more recalcitrant and ambitious over Donbas and Crimea, and Putin reacted as he did. The sanctions were a foregone response that any US president (even Trump) would have signed off on. The military aid was less certain, but once Russia's offensive stalled, the temptation was hard to resist. As a long-time critic of American foreign policy, this is not a course of policy I'm in favor of, but within the practical limits of our existing two-party system, I don't want to single Biden out for special condemnation -- although I have broken party ranks with LBJ over Vietnam, with Clinton over Iraq, and with Obama over Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria). The one thing I do fault Biden on is not stressing enough the need for a cease fire and conflict-ending agreement, although as far as I can tell, he's not personally on the more hawkish side of his administration.

Of course, I'm also critical of Biden for continuing his predecessors' hostile policies toward Iran and Venezuela -- perhaps least importantly because they've increased oil prices for American and allied consumers, although at the moment if one did want to flood the market quickly, the easiest (and perhaps only) way would be to suspend their sanctions (and/or end the war with Russia). The "tax holiday" scheme is too little, and not likely to help customers. Even worse are schemes to incentivize companies to increase drilling and refining -- a long-term solution counter to needs on climate change. It would be better to just give people more money to help out on inflation (e.g, you could advance the COLA on Social Security).

I've long been skeptical about the efficacy as well as the politics and morality of US sanctions, so I'm not surprised that they seem to be hurting us and our friends as much or more than they're influencing Russia. The best you can say for them is that they let us feel like we're doing something short of direct military engagement. Still, the notion that you can overcome their shortcomings by making them harsher and more resolute is a natural delusion. The longer the war drags on, the more likely both sides are to do really stupid things.

I don't know what you mean by "Anglo media." The American media is pretty relentlessly critical of Biden, especially on inflation, where he is damned for not anticipating it, damned doubly for not fixing it, and blamed for all sorts of imaginary causes and consequences (well, except for the war, which the media are typically unquestioning of). One favorite Republican talking point is to blame high gas prices on "Biden's Green New Deal," which never got passed, and wasn't Biden's in the first place. (Although note that while electricity prices are up, that's only about half as much as natural gas, thanks to all of the renewable capacity installed over the last 10-20 years.) But aside from Fox, it doesn't even seem that the media picking on Biden is ideological. They just like to watch him squirm.

One more point while we're at it. I'm seeing a lot of articles that purport to "fact check" or otherwise refute the charge that high gas prices are due to corporate greed. They're so common I suspect that industry PR flacks are orchestrating them. (Given the state of the media, that's not what you'd call unlikely.) The usual answer is to offer some other explanation -- many, like sanctions against Russia, aren't untrue -- as if greed only works as an answer once every other explanation is ruled out. But isn't it more like this: greed ensures that every possible excuse to raise profits will be jumped on? The way capitalism works is that every company is as greedy as possible. If a company's management isn't greedy enough, shareholders will rise up and replace those managers with greedier bastards. Still, it's kind of touching they feel the need to lie and obfuscate about such an obvious point. Perhaps it doesn't mean that they're ashamed, but suspect that they should be. And that they don't trust ordinary consumers to salute as they're being fucked over.

[A] I reviewed it here. I had seen a couple other notices, but I wasn't aware that I'd find five more albums I hadn't reviewed (same link).

[A] My first thought was that I'm probably playing fast and loose with language, trying to mix it up a bit. But "equal" and "equitable" are mostly synonyms: the first definition of the latter is "fairness; impartiality; justice," which in a social or political context is about all you can hope for from equality. True, "equal" has a more precise meaning in mathematics and logic, where it is closer to identical than "equivalent." That use risks suggesting that an "equal society" is much more precisely balanced that seems actually possible. "Equitable" suggests a fair and reasonable distribution of resources and rights, which is a more practicable aim. "Equity" also has a second meaning tied to property (stock shares, net assets) and that suggests a way to achieve a more equitable society: through a more equal distribution of assets. One of my pet ideas is that all companies, at least beyond the initial founders shares, should be owned by their employees.

Needless to say, I think inequality is a very big problem in America today, and throughout the world. I'd go so far as to say that a lot of problems are rooted in inequality, and are worsened as inequality increases (as has been nearly constant since 1980 -- a convenient political marker, but while Republicans have done most to increase inequality, Democrats have often helped them, and rarely done anything to lessen much less reverse the trend). All I want to add here is that there are two approaches to more equality: one is to reduce the disparity in wealth and income; the other is to reduce the impact of inequality, especially by carving out areas (like health care and education) where everyone has the same rights for equal treatment.

As for the wording, I did a quick scan through my notebook so far this year, and found that I used "equitable" 3 times (once in "equitable society" and twice in "equitable and generous country"; in 2021, I used "equitable" twice, neither with "society," both qualified by "more"). "Equity" appears once (in quotes), and "inequities" twice. On the other hand, "equality" appears 8 times, "equal" 9 (with "rights" 5 times, and once each with "claims," "opportunity," "prices," and "vote"). "Inequality" appears 17 times, "inequal" (with "societies") once. I'm not surprised that I talk more about what's wrong than what would be right: the wrong is both more obvious and more urgent. However, I doubt that "equitable society" is a new term. Sometimes we need a word for where we want to go. But most likely I'll keep qualifying it with "more," as long as the direction matters more than the destination.

[A] Sure, but Bandcamp only has 1 track (of 4) available, and I'm at a stage in my life (old and retired) when I no longer buy albums on spec. I should note that while I've listened to a fair amount of Braxton and written about him at some length, thus far I've missed out on his "Ghost Trance Music" (at least the 2001 4-CD on Rastascan, the 2003 2x2-CD on Leo, the 2006 4-CD on Important, the 2007 9-CD on Firehouse 12, and the 2017 12-CD on New Braxton House, and I'm sure there are more -- I've counted 6 more CDs, not including the GTM (Iridium) 2007 sets, which look like New Braxton House reissues of the Firehouse 12 box). The sheer numbers are daunting, especially glommed together as they are when streaming. [PS: Got a download code, so it's in the queue.]

[A] This is sad, especially the notion that smaller states should roll over and play dead to appease or amuse their bullying neighbors. No doubt it happens more often than not, as it's easier to notice the exceptions than the rule: Cuba defying the US since 1959, or Vietnam turning China back in 1979. Ukraine is paying a high price for defying Russia, but those who submit to more powerful neighbors pay a price too. Belarus is an example: a country which defers to Russia, run by a compatible kleptocrat. Of course, you could substitute a bunch of examples in Latin America.

Zelensky is open to second guessing on a number of counts, but he was only elected after Russia had taken a couple bites out of Ukraine, and was threatening more. It would have been prudent to negotiate a partition with Russia, but it's not clear that Putin would have accepted such a deal. So he set about trying to line up some leverage, appealing to the US and EU in terms that further agitated Russia. Still, in the final days before the invasion, it was not Zelensky who was taunting Putin; it was the US, with its leaked intelligence reports, and threats of sanctions (but no armed resistance, which Putin could have misread as an invite).

In great power rivalries, it's not unusual for local proxies to go rogue, to provoke atroities and sabotage efforts at negotiation -- a lesson we should recall from Vietnam and Afghanistan. Zelensky is less obviously a stooge, but he's been so effective at rallying American and European support that his backers have let him run the show. It isn't clear how he'll handle negotiations, and won't be until Putin is ready. In the long run, we may wind up judging him more harshly for letting the war happens and not ending it sooner, but for now his ability to stand up against Russia's imperial conceits is simply admirable.

I don't know a lot about covert US interference in Ukraine politics, but I've hardly neglected more general anti-Russian propaganda since 1991. Even if it wasn't official policy, the US security apparatus was purged of benign internationalists in the late 1940s, and restocked with ardent cold warriors, many of them with deep backgrounds full of anti-Russian loathing (e.g., Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezenski, and Madeline Albright, but there have been many more). These people never had any qualms about kicking Russia when it was down, and they rarely failed to seize upon opportunities to flip a country against Russia. The 2004 and 2014 "revolutions" in Ukraine are examples. I have no idea how much the CIA did to foment those events, but I don't doubt for a minute that they fed and nurtured them, and celebrated in their success. On the other hand, I suspect that there were other outside resources, coming from the EU, from the private sector, even from "philanthropists" like Soros. In particular, various NGOs that purport to promote democracy have, at least historically, been staged as political fronts. Conversely, I have no doubt that there is an extensive network of Russian agents operating in Ukraine, and that they played an outsized role in the separatist movements of 2014. But it's hard to tell how much of each external influence there was, and how effective it was, so I preferred not to dwell on it. But also, it makes sense to me that Ukraine should harbor both pro- and anti-Russian constituencies, and that the shifts toward Europe or Russia reflect popular wishes, as one would expect in a democracy.

It's true that I didn't mention Victoria Nuland in my pieces. She is a prominent neocon, with Ukrainian ancestry and a degree in Russia studies. She rose to prominence in the GW Bush administration, continued with Obama, skipped Trump but was hired back by Biden (Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs) -- a clear signal that Biden intended to push arms into Ukraine as soon as he took office. She is best known for a leaked phone conversation where she seemed to be picking/vetoing possible Ukrainian office holders. Wikipedia has a picture of her and Kerry meeting with "Ukrainian opposition leaders" before Yanukovych was impeached, and before her preferred candidate, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, became prime minister. This tape is often cited as "smoking gun" proof that the US was running Ukraine and using it as a wedge against Russia. That interpretation would be consistent with her history. Also worth noting that her husband is Robert Kagan, a co-founder of Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which started scheming for the Iraq War back in 1997. He was appointed to the State Department Foreign Affairs Policy Board in 2011. His father, Donald Kagan, was born in Lithuania, and has long been a promiment warmonger. Both left the Republican Party to support Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they supported Biden in 2020.

I suspect that the more we learn about the rapport between the Biden administration and Zelensky from Inauguration 2021 all the way to the invasion, the more evident it will become that Russia was being pushed into a corner with no respectable exit. As far as I'm concerned, none of that excuses Putin's invasion, or makes me at all sympathetic to his predicament. But it does show that many of the basic assumptions Washington makes about security and foreign policy are deeply and dangerously flawed.

I've written tons and tons over the years about the malign influence of neocon warmongers and their "humanitarian interventionist" helpers, so I'm surprised that someone who has read me regularly for such a long time wouldn't have noticed that thread in my Ukraine writings.

[A] I don't know the answer to this, but I'm skeptical that Americans in a position to do something about it failed to see the importance of helping Russia defeat Germany. Sure, Stalin wanted the US/UK to open up a second front in Western Europe earlier than they did, but even after D-Day the overwhelming majority of German forces was aimed at Russia. At least, the US started providing Lend-Lease aid to the USSR even before the US declared war on Germany in December, 1941, which was probably a bigger help than an earlier second front would have been. I'm not sure why Eisenhower waited on D-Day as long as he did, but I doubt any of the major US policy makers were intent on sabotaging Russia. Not that there weren't Americans who hated Communism enough to propose allying with Germany against Russia -- there just weren't many of them. What did happen was that after the war, as the US no longer needed Russia to do the heavy fighting, the alliance fractured and anti-Communists became increasingly prominent, with the US doing all sorts of things Russians would grow to resent. Slighting or forgetting Russia's primary role in defeating Germany was a big one. But as I noted, Russia had a long history of feeling slighted by the West, and the Cold War added thousands of tiny cuts. Perhaps worse, it didn't end there.