Monthly Archives: October 2008

Conference of the Birds, 2008-10-21

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Alas, because of technical problems, there is no archive of this week’s show. 

Artist: “Track” – Album (Label)

Chris Speed/Chris Cheek/Stephane Furic Leibovici: “Therego” – Jugendstil (ESP Disk)
Sun Ra: “Solar Differentials” – Secrets of the Sun (Atavistic/Unheard Music Series)
Cooper-Moore: “That’s Right” – The Cedar Box Recordings (AUM Fidelity)
Carla Bley and her Remarkable Big Band: “Greasy Gravy” – Appearing Nightly (Watt)
William Parker Quartet: “Malachi’s Mode” – Petit Oiseau (AUM Fidelity)
Malachi Favors Maghostut: “Gone” – Natural and the Spiritual (AECO)
Malachi Favors Maghostut: “The Procession” – Natural and the Spiritual (AECO)
Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio featuring Billy Bang: “Big M” – Big M: A Tribute to Malachi Favors (Delmark)
David Hurley: “Cosmic Moon March” – Outer Nebula Inner Nebula (Porter)
Heikki Sarmanto Quintet: “Azure Skies” – Counterbalance (Porter)
Will Holshouser Trio: “Blue Light Special” – Reed Song (Clean Feed)
Ned Rothenberg’s Sync with Strings: “Keyn Eynhore” – Inner Diaspora (Tzadik)
BassDrumBone: “The Line Up” – The Line Up (Clean Feed)
Mark Helias: “Fourth World” – Desert Blue (Enja)
Thom Gossage Other Voices: “Adagio for Isabelle” – Impulsi (Canadian Council for the Arts)
Gust William Tsilis & Alithea with Arthur Blythe: “Bathsheba” – Pale Fire (Enja)
Eric Kloss: “It’s Too Late” – One, Two, Free (Mute)
AMM: “Combine + Laminates” – Combine + Laminates + Treatise ’84 (Matchless)

links for 2008-10-21

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  • Muslim McCain Fans Confront Intolerance At Rally (VIDEO)
    “At a John McCain rally in Woodbridge, Virginia, three people handed out “Obama for Change” bumper stickers with the Communist sickle and hammer and the Islamic crescent, saying Obama was a socialist with ties to radical Islam. Several moderate McCain supporters, Muslim and Christian alike, struck back – relentlessly bombarding the group distributing the flyers until they left the premises.”
    (tags: election_2008 islam)
  • Nested: The Saddest and/or Greatest Costume Ever!
    That’s why, this year, we couldn’t resist dressing our precious one-year-old girl up as Gallagher! 

    Yes, that Gallager.

    (tags: halloween)
  • Tracks4Africa: Mapping and annotating Africa’s remote eco-destinations « Jon Udell
    “Back in 2005 I made a screencast that showed how the convergence of GPS and online mapping enables us to collectively annotate the planet. The Tracks4Africa folks have been doing that since 2000. On this week’s Innovators show, Johann Groenewald explains how some GPS enthusiasts who are passionate about exploring, documenting, and preserving Africa’s rural and remote “eco-destinations” have created an annotated map that travelers can use and enhance.”
    (tags: africa gps)
  • Paul Krugman: Supply, Demand, and English Food
    “the history of English food suggests that even on so basic a matter as eating, a free-market economy can get trapped for an extended period in a bad equilibrium in which good things are not demanded because they have never been supplied, and are not supplied because not enough people demand them.”
    (tags: food economics culture)
  • Drunk, and Dangerous, at the Keyboard – NYTimes.com
    “The experimental program requires any user who enables the function to perform five simple math problems in 60 seconds before sending e-mails between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. on weekends. That time frame apparently corresponds to the gap between cocktail No. 1 and cocktail No. 4, when tapping out an e-mail message to an ex or a co-worker can seem like the equivalent of bungee jumping without a cord.”
    (tags: culture internet)

links for 2008-10-20

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  • Bill Moyers Journal: Mark Crispin Miller Interview Transcript
    ‘Well, I make of it what it is a first-class propaganda drive. The entities you’ve mentioned are all participating in it – Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, the McCain campaign, despite the inconvenient fact that John McCain gave the keynote speech at ACORN’s annual conference in 2006. We won’t talk about that. The fact is that what we’re hearing about ACORN is, without exception, false. It is false. ACORN itself flagged the suspicious voter registration forms that caused this whole thing to begin in Las Vegas about ten days ago. It brought those forms to the attention of the secretary of state who then turned around and said, “Ah-ha, evidence that you’re conspiring to commit voter fraud.”‘
    (tags: democracy voting)
  • The Things He Carried – The Atlantic
    “Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items—as our correspondent did with ease.”
    (tags: security travel)
  • Bush Aides Say Religious Hiring Doesn’t Bar Aid – NYTimes.com
    ‘“It’s really the church-state equivalent of the torture memos,” Mr. Anders said. “It takes a view of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that allows religious organizations to get federal funds without complying with anything.”’
    (tags: politricks religion)
  • Al Jazeera Reports on Ohio McCain-Palin Rally | TakePart Blog Network
    People say the darndest things.
    (tags: election_2008 ohio video)

links for the last week or so

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links for 2008-10-11

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  • Zina Saunders: GI Josie Six-Pack
    McCain, the stalwart war hero, gave up this week on winning the battleground of Michigan.

    But GI Josie Six-Pack doesn’t want to retreat.Gang way! Man the torpedoes! Fight! Fight! FIGHT!

    (tags: election_2008 john_mccain sarah_palin art)
  • The Choice: Comment: The New Yorker
    “The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe.”
    (tags: election_2008 barack_obama endorsement)
  • Dinner In The Sky Events – USA
    “Dinner in the Sky is a high flying Sky Box that takes 22 guests to a viewing height of up to 180 feet. The 22 guests are comfortably strapped into a leather seat that is secured to a dining table. The dining table and seats are connected to a crane which then performs the lift. The center of the dining table has a walking platform that can accommodate up to 5 service personnel for the purpose of serving food, beverages, picture taking, conducting a meeting or product launch presentation.”
    (tags: food ridiculous)
  • NPR: Masses of Citizens are Coming Together Around the Bailout Fight
    “Whatever happens with the bailout bill, I don’t think this genie can be stuffed back into the bottle. An old way of doing things is dying, and the new one being born isn’t quite in place yet.”
    (tags: democracy participation)
  • The Case for Earmarks | The American Prospect
    Like a lot of McCain’s posturing, his war on pork makes for good headlines and bad governance. If he were anywhere near as dogmatic on earmarks as he claims to be, it’s impossible to imagine him passing any major legislation. Ever. Or voting for any major legislation. or approving budget bills and spending. Or having a working relationship with Congress. Or getting reelected, as every district in the country finds crucial programs and infrastructure subsidies are being cut.
    (tags: politics earmarks)
  • Paul Kedrosky: The Banking System, Nationalization and Slack
    “The solution to a systemic breakdown in tightly-coupled systems is to uncouple the systems, build in slack, and break the feedback mechanisms — and not necessarily in that order.”
    (tags: finance systems)

links for 2008-10-10

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  • Honda Civic Musical Road – RPA – Very Short List
    “The Santa Monica ad agency RPA cut half-inch grooves into a quarter-mile stretch of Avenue K, in the exurban L.A. desert city of Lancaster. The grooves were synched in such a way that driving over them at precisely 55mph caused Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” — a.k.a. the Lone Ranger theme — to echo in the air around you.”
    (tags: advertising music)

links for 2008-10-09

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  • The Palins’ un-American activities | Salon
    “Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.”
    (tags: election_2008 alaska sarah_palin)
  • The 2008 presidential election as seen on daytime television | Salon Life
    “It was a glimpse at what the daytime format makes possible: a breezy, casual, personal exchange as vehicle for a larger social conversation. The moment packs a wallop in part because the heft of the encounter is a surprise, and in part because it is delivered by a host, like DeGeneres, whom viewers feel they know intimately and trust. Instead of watching a political pundit conduct an inside-baseball transaction with a candidate, an audience can feel as if a friend has just asked the questions.”
    (tags: election_2008 television)
  • Open Debates
    Currently, the presidential debates are secretly controlled by the major parties, through the private bipartisan corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates, resulting in the stultification of format, the exclusion of popular candidates, and the avoidance of pressing national issues.

    The major party candidates never pay a political price for their antidemocratic practices; posing as an independent sponsor, the Commission on Presidential Debates shields the major party candidates from public criticism and public accountability.

    Open Debates is launching simultaneous campaigns to inform the public, the news media and policy makers about the fundamental problems with the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. It is also promoting an alternative presidential debate sponsor – the nonpartisan Citizens’ Debate Commission – comprised of national civic leaders committed to maximizing voter education.

    (tags: democracy politics)

links for 2008-10-08

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  • Open Books Ltd.
    Open Books aspires to promote literacy as energetically and thoroughly as possible, and that means we’d like to work with volunteers, donors, and supporters of every ethnicity, age, gender, side of town, interest, you name it! What can you do? Tell your friends, family, colleagues, and contacts to join Open Books, especially those who represent another cultural experience or point of view! Is your aunt or grandpa a night owl? Bring ‘em to a bar night! Are there people at your office who look or think differently than you? Invite them to a book sort! Do you belong to a professional club or community group? Let Open Books set up a service day or book drive with your organization. Our literacy students need a range of role models, and diversity makes for more fun — and a much more effective, inspiring literacy organization.
    (tags: chicago literacy nonprofit)
  • techPresident – Twitter: An Antidote to Election Day Voting Problems?
    “For far too long, the job of election protection has fallen largely to lawyers schooled in election law. But there’s an opportunity before us right now and through Election Day for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of citizens to identify and rectify voting problems in real time. ¶ Enter Twitter.”
    (tags: voting twitter participation crowdsourcing)
  • Alex Jones’ Prison Planet: Bayer Pesticide Chemicals Linked to Devastating Collapse of Honeybee Populations
    ‘“It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds,” said the federal agricultural research agency, the Julius Kuehn Institute.’
    (tags: environment)
  • Report urges regulated market for cannabis to replace prohibition | The Guardian
    The report, compiled by a group of scientists, academics and drug policy experts, suggests that much of the harm associated with cannabis use is “the result of prohibition itself, particularly the social harms arising from arrest and imprisonment.” Policies that control cannabis, whether draconian or liberal, appear to have little impact on the prevalence of consumption, it concluded.
    (tags: drugs policy)

Conference of the Birds, 2008-10-07

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On the way into this week’s show, I was listening to the current Sound Opinions feature on Psychedelic Soul, which was great, and which had me wanting to play compatible music. That said, what’s available in the station on a moment’s notice is not necessarily compatible, so starting with the somewhat pertinent electric Miles (there’s no doubt he was hearing and inspired by the P-soul movement) we rolled out into more exploratory, less funky stuff, eventually finding our way back to Spaceways, Inc, the Chicago-based group founded in part to play music from the Parliament-Funkadelic “songbook” (although the one I played was an original dedicated to Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham…)

I’m continuing to enjoy mining tracks from the new Rudresh Mahanthappa album “Kinsmen” – check it out.

As always, feel free to leave comments if you hear anything interesting in this week’s show…

complete program (140 MB, 2 hrs 33 min)

artist: “track” – album   (label)

Miles Davis: “Friday Miles” – At Fillmore (Columbia)
Fontanelle: “29th and Going” – Fontanelle (Kranky)
Town and Country: “Aubergine” – 5 (Thrill Jockey)
Roscoe Mitchell: “Tahquemenon” – Nonaah (Nessa)
Kahil El’Zabar with David Murray: “Sweet Meat” – Golden Sea (Sound Aspects)
Spaceways, Inc.: “Size Large (for Larry Graham)” – Version Soul (Atavistic)
Arthur Blythe: “Night Train” – Exhale (Savant)
Archie Shepp: “Solitude” – Steam (Inner City)
Archie Shepp: “Steam” – Steam (Inner City)
Steve Lacy-Roswell Rudd Quartet: “Monk’s Dream” – School Days (Hat Jazz)
Michael Musillami/Mario Pavone Quintet: “Bella at Six” – Pivot (Playscape)
Henry Threadgill Sextett: “Those Who Eat Cookies” – You Know the Number (Novus)
Bazooka: “Billie’s Bounce” – Blowhole (SST)
Universal Congress Of: “Small World” – The Sad and Tragic Demise of Big Fine Hot Salty Black Wind (Enemy)
The Vandermark Quartet: “Tasteless” – Solid Action (Platypus)
Arthur Blythe: “Down San Diego Way” – Lenox Avenue Breakdown (Sony)
Rudresh Mahanthappa and Kadri Gopalnath: “Convergence (Kinsmen)” – Kinsmen (Pi Recordings)
Evan Parker/Ned Rothenberg: “For Chifonie” – Monkey Puzzle (Leo)
Chris Speed/Chris Cheek/Stephane Furic Leibovici: “Three Kinds of Folks” – Jugendstil (ESP Disk)

links for 2008-10-07

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