Baron Dave Romm
By Baron Dave Romm
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Finished Archiving Bartcop-E Columns
As mentioned last week, I was working on the archive of my Bartcop-E music reviews at Baron Dave's Recommended Music. I'm now caught up. For now.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day, originally Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. While it's precise origins are murky, the ceremonies seem to have cropped up in several places before being proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Since it was nominally to honor those fallen in the Civil War, the southern states refused to acknowledge the day until after WWI, when it honored all fallen soldiers.
Memorial Day is often conflated with Veteran's Day. What started out as Armistice Day after WWI and became Veteran's Day after WWII. It takes the next war to put the previous war in perspective, I guess.
We can honor our fallen and our veterans in many ways. I'm going to dig in past columns (and a LiveJournal entry) for this one.
Honoring Our Soldiers And Those Who Fight For Them
He gets up on his soapbox.
Our men and women in uniform are outstanding. They are the best. They are the best trained soldiers in the world, but that's not why they're the best. They have the strongest, most up-to-date weaponry in the world, but that's not why they're the best. They have the most experience military leaders, but that's not why they're the best.
Our soldiers are outstanding because what they are fighting for is outstanding. Any Pvt. Tom, Sgt. Dick or Capt. Mary can be trained to shoot a gun, but only American soldiers know that they are fighting for the USofA.
Merely being well-trained soldiers is not enough: The Soviet Army was good, but they were fighting for the Soviet Union and that was ultimately demoralizing enough that they lost their effectiveness and the USSR collapsed without a shot. Terrorists/insurgents may be fighting for clan or land, but suicide bombers will be forgotten long before their desperate fight is rendered meaningless. All soldiers are taught that they fight an important cause, but politicians and religious zealots will say anything for selfish motivation. The United States brings people together under the rule of law, and our soldiers know that they are fighting for their families, their country and the Constitution that makes us one. Terrorism is the tool of the powerless. A strong military under civilian rule is the pride of the powerful.
This country is best defined by the first half of
the first line in the Constitution:
We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a
more perfect union....
The King did not bestow. G_d did not grant. History did not decree. We, the people, in union, are writing this set of laws.
We are not perfect, and we never will be. Perfection is for G_d, and we are striving toward perfection. We will never get there, but we're sure going to try.
Striving to fix flaws in a great country is is an act of patriotism no less than joining the armed forces. Protecting our men and women in uniform who are protecting the country is an act of heroism. We know soldiers are there when needed, and we on the homefront want to ensure that you make the ultimate sacrifice only when needed. We know you'll fight where sent and follow orders. Death in service to your country is worth of honor, even if the battle was determined by selfish political motives and not military necessity.
I am a man of peace, but I am not a pacifist. There are times when war is necessary, but they are few. Weak politicians love to make threats that other people die for. Sometimes soldiers get killed when there is another way. We must separate the war from the warrior. In doing so, we must honor those who fight against the war. The warriors fight the battle, and we the people fight to bring them home when the battle no longer serves the country.
To those who support war based on lies and outside interests I say: You are doing this country harm.
To those who are against war I say: Remember that our soldiers are fighting for you.
To our soldiers I say: We've got your back.
There are heroes aplenty. There are too many dead heroes.
This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen and make sure that they are honored for their ultimate sacrifice. And let us, too, honor those patriots who are trying to form a more perfect union.
He kicks away the soapbox. Touching solid earth, misty-eyed, he looks up at the flag.
Honoring the fallen by showing flag-draped coffins
This column is from 2008. One of the first things President Obama did was to lift Bush's strict ban on showing the coffins of war casualties. My outrage over Bush's cowardice remains.
Faces of the
Fallen, Washington Post
4,563 Total Fatalities (officially) as
of May 25, 2008CE
The conservative media does
not allow the nation to mourn.
They make long lists, but rarely,
if ever, pause to show the flag-draped remains of an individual as
they return home.
Here are just a few of the fallen we honor
today.
An Army honor guard carries the coffin
of Staff Sgt. Duane J. Dreasky, of Novi, Mich.
at Arlington
National Cemetery
original
An Army honor guard carries Darrell C. Lewis'
coffin to the grave site
in Arlington National Cemetery
original
Members of the Travis Air Force Base
Honor Guard performs a military flag folding in honor of
Senior
Airman Alecia Sabrina Good
original
An Army honor guard carries the casket of Army
Sgt. Michael C. Hardegree, of Villa Rica, Ga.
during funeral
services at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va
original
I wish I could show them all, but even if I could just plunking them all in one place does not do justice to the continuing effort and sacrifice of our soldiers.
We have great differences with the current leaders of the United States, but we must separate the war from the warrior. Those of us who are against the war bear the burden of getting them out of harms way as soon as feasible.
I hope that next year we as a nation have fewer new casualties to add to the list of the fallen. I fear this will not be the case.
Two (of many) YouTube videos as tribute
Tribute To American
Soldiers
Tribute Fallen Soldiers In Iraq and
Afghanistan
Record Burials for Veterans
Cemeteries see record for veteran burials CNN May 24, 2008CE:
An average of 1,800 veterans die each day, and 10 percent of them are buried in the country's 125 national cemeteries, which are expected to set a record with 107,000 interments, including dependents, this year. And more national cemeteries are being built.
The peak year for veterans' deaths will be 2007 or 2008, Tuerk said. An estimated 686,000 veterans died in 2007. Although many World War II veterans are dying, so are an increased number of Korean War and Vietnam veterans.
Empty Flag Draped Coffins
original
Was My Brother In Battle? SONGS OF WAR *****
From Day 10 of the 2009 Fringe Festival
A strong voice and a strong narrative
I can only hear "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" so many times a year. David Gompper and Stephen Swanson do powerful versions of anti-war songs originally conceived in anger at the remarkably poor media coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom. They will never be on Fox or CNN. A few brave musicians cover Tom Lehrer; fewer are brave enough to cover Charles Ives or Flanders and Swann. I look forward to listening to the CD... after a time. A Shockwave Radio Theater Review.
For a Fringe dominated by comedy, musical comedy and conceptual dance, at least in the ones I went to, the most affecting shows were the first-person accounts of the aftermath of war. Swanson sung "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" at the Ootiefest, which immediately made "Songs of War" a priority, but for later in the Fringe. It still chokes me up just hearing it in my head; yes, I'm a romantic. "Death Camp Diaries" on Thursday acted as fulcrum to these songs, and I have a hard time talking about that one as well.
Maybe I need to scream at injustice, literally. I should go to a town hall meeting and engage, loudly and verbally, with the morons who are yelling lies and right wing political correctness. I'm normally a calm person, but sometimes you just have to get their attention, and if it provides catharsis for me so much the better.
Until You Come Home
Until You Come Home: Songs for Veterans and Their Kin is a compilation of songs from various CDs, including Hail To The Thieves, reviewed here a while back. In the meantime, we lost Julius Margolin. George Mann continues the effort, fighting for the common man... and the soldier in the ranks.
Truth in reviewing: One of the reasons I can't identify with the label "liberal" is because of Buffy Sainte-Marie's Universal Soldier. Okay: If no one wanted to be a soldier, we wouldn't have wars. I get it. You get it. Unfortunately, The Bad Guys don't get it. You can convince us peace-loving Americans not to fight, but that leaves the Nazis/Viet Cong/al Queda/Hamas who want to kill us. Many of The Bad Guys would come here and massacre us in our sleep shouting "Death to America" convinced that they will be rewarded in the next life. Having a strong army necessary to a strong defense. Buffy was just wrong, and I had a visceral reaction against that aspect of the peace movement.
Yet one of the reasons I can't identify with the label "conservative" is in the use of said army. The best way to keep the peace is to be prepared to win a war if it comes. Pre-emptive wars need a damn good justification, and wars of aggression are unAmerican. That puts the onus of avoiding wars on politicians and the burden of fighting unavoidable wars on soldiers... and sends the responsibility back to the political arena to end deadly conflicts. I have an equally visceral reaction against the gung-ho pseudo-American types who think that every political disagreement can and should be settled by force of arms. The height of this disgusting stupidity was Bush's refusal to honor our fallen soldiers by showing their flag-draped caskets when they returned home. Thankfully, Obama has reversed that decision.
But I digress.
Until You Come Home is not anti-war; it is pro-soldier. By itself, a tremendous achievement. We don't need songs to say that wars kill soldiers; we get it. We need reminding of the sacrifices made by our brave soldiers; sacrifices of blood, of identity, of family back home.
Even if you survive physically intact, the experience will change you in ways that are intensely personal and yet affect everyone you know.
The Casualty of War is not just the WWII vet, but his family: "They'd haunt his dreams, we'd wake to screams to know the horrors that he saw". Holly Near sees how war causes "the burden in my family and the sorrow in my town" and says I Am Willing to see change: "May the children see more clearly and may the elders be more wise, may the winds of change caress us even though they burn our eyes." Tom Paxton sings for the voiceless of The Unknown, as in The Unknown Soldier, watching people watching him be buried in Arlington. "Time to quit your grieving for your only loving son. Momma, I'm okay."
George Mann gets the first and last songs. Streams of Gold. about the how all soldiers share their hopes in battle, "I will walk this trail beside you till you're home." In Welcome Home, an old soldier at least has the peace of dying in a hospital accompanied by loved ones: "What a life you have led, what a story you've told. Welcome home."
You can preview the songs on Until You Come Home on CDBaby, but they deserve a full listen.
Until You Come Home: Songs for Veterans and Their Kin is from old lefties, but the the viewpoint is the soldiers. Highly recommended for anyone, regardless of politics, who appreciates our warriors or who has had their life changed by someone else's battle experience.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Poor Elijah (Peter Berger): Civilization As We Know It (irascibleprofessor.com)
A couple of centuries ago, when the nation was younger and fewer things ran on batteries, Mark Twain defined civilization as the "limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities."
Would You Hire Your Own Kids? 7 Skills Schools Should be Teaching Them (alternet.org)
"First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions," Parker responded. "Our business is changing, and so the skills our engineers need change rapidly, as well. We can teach them the technical stuff. But for employees to solve problems or to learn new things, they have to know what questions to ask. And we can't teach them how to ask good questions-how to think. The ability to ask the right questions is the single most important skill."
Richard Greenwald: When Did Teachers Become the Enemy? (inthesetimes.com)
Education has been consuming a great deal of attention of late. There have been two major articles in the New York Times in the past few months. Schools are dealing with body-blow-like budget cuts, the demands of No Child Left Behind and the Obama Administration's focus on Race to the Top.
Gerardo Orlando: A Chat with Richard Roeper (bullz-eye.com)
Roeper also loves to gamble, so he came up with a great idea for a book after seeing Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Super Size Me." Roeper concocted his own 30-day challenge - he would bet at least $1,000 per day of his own money every day over a 30-day period. The result is "Bet the House: How I Gambled Over a Grand a Day for 30 Days on Sports, Poker, and Games of Chance," ...
Katharine Hibbert: The greatest stories almost never told (timesonline.co.uk)
Unheralded authors are using apps to reach their audience and - just maybe - a chance of being signed up by the big publishers.
Carla Meyer: His new book, 'Role Models,' helps explain John Waters (McClatchy Newspapers)
An artist drawn to the margins, John Waters achieved infamy with low-budget 1970s films starring garish, up-for-anything transvestite Divine and other horrifying/lovable Baltimore misfits.
Tom Tomorrow: A Good Time With Pearl Jam (hartfordadvocate.com)
Advocate cartoonist, and Connecticut resident, tells of his wine-fueled collaboration with Eddie Vedder and the gang.
Dorian Lynskey: "Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt: Everything but the grief" (guardian.co.uk)
They wrote sad songs, survived serious illness and fell out of love with pop. Now Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt are back. Dorian Lynskey hears about their happy ending.
Margaret Wappler: Amanda Jo Williams' cosmic country (latimes.com)
At 30, Williams has already lived a storied life.
Xan Brooks: "Juliette Binoche: the queen of Cannes" (guardian.co.uk)
Juliette Binoche is French film royalty, famous the world over. But nothing could prepare her for Iran, where she was chased by female fans in burqas.
Kenneth Turan: 'Breathless' still crackles with energy (latimes.com)
Fifty years later, Jean-Luc Godard's classic New Wave tale of fatalistic romance retains its power to surprise and excite.
John Tebbutt: "The Coolest DVD Box Set (that you'll never finish)" (ffwdweekly.com)
The ups and downs of "Sci Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack."
David Bruce: "Composition Project: Writing a Set of Instructions" (Lulu.com)
Free download at http://stores.lulu.com/bruceb. This free pdf download describes a composition assignment that I have used successfully during my years of teaching at Ohio University. Feel free to make as many copies as you want to for educational purposes.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Remake (Mistake?)' Edition
Is CBS seriously taking on a remake? Hawaii 5-0 Remake?
Apparently so. According to the Hollywood Reporter,
CBS has the rights to the original show which aired from 1968 to 1980, and CSI: NY writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will be taking a stab at developing the show and writing the pilot.
And so it goes...
Are there any TV series that you'd like to see resurrected with a 'Remake'?
Send your response to
Friendly Reminder:
Polling cut-off is tonight (Monday) at 8pm EDT
(5pm PDT fer you 'Left Coast' types, haha)
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Links from RJ
Two-Fer
Hi there
A couple of possibilities for you today - thanks for taking a look!
Middle East Tour
Kareem Salama
The US Muslim country and western singer Kareem Salama will be touring the Middle East.
NEW YORK // Singing country music songs from beneath the brim of a cowboy hat with a full-bore Southern drawl, the up-and-coming performer Kareem Salama breaks the expectations audiences may have of an Egyptian-American Muslim.
At least that is the message the US state department hopes to make by sending "America's first Muslim country singer" on a month-long tour from Morocco to Bahrain, designed to improve Washington's dented reputation across the Middle East...
US sends America's first Muslim country singer on Middle East tour - The National Newspaper
BadtotheboneBob
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and summerish.
Germany Wins Song Contest
Eurovision
Germany's Lena Meyer-Landrut won the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest with the catchy pop song "Satellite," edging out Turkey and Romania as the continent put aside its financial woes for a night of musical exuberance.
It was Germany's second win in the songfest's 55-year history, and the victory means it will host next year's contest.
Meyer-Landrut had been the second favorite among leading bookmakers, but first in a Google predictor program. Her victory marks the second year in a row that the Google program has correctly projected the winner of Eurovision, after predicting Norwegian fiddler Alexander Rybak's win in Moscow last year.
This year several countries pulled out of the extravaganza citing financial strains, including the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Andorra and Hungary.
Eurovision
Muggles In NYC
Quidditch
The seeker from the Bronx High School of Science had to jump a fence and follow the snitch down Fifth Avenue. He caught the snitch but it didn't count because his broom wasn't between his legs.
Bronx Science lost 50-30 to Lenox High School in Lenox, Mass., as Central Park played host to an exhibition of Quidditch, the soccer-like game invented by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
In the books, Quidditch is played by wizards and witches on flying broomsticks. The real-life version with Muggles - non-magical folk - started in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont and is now played at over 150 colleges and 100 high schools.
In Muggle Quidditch, chasers try to throw the quaffle - a volleyball - through a hoop. For defense, beaters hit opposing players with a bludger - a dodgeball. The team's seeker runs after the snitch, a fast runner with a tennis ball in a sock that the seeker has to grab like the flag in flag football. In the fictional game, the snitch is a winged ball.
Quidditch
From WWII To Hip-Hop
Vocoder
Half art book, half music nerd bathroom reading, Dave Tompkins' long-in-the-works history of the vocoder, "How to Wreck a Nice Beach," chronicles the sound synthesizing system's journey from Bell Labs to the top of the charts -- and from the Pentagon to the nightclub.
Billboard spoke to Tompkins about his inspirations for the project -- which was published in March by Stop Smiling Books/Melville House -- and why Winston Churchill was the original T-Pain.
Billboard: How did you come to write this book? After all, it's not every day someone says, "I think I want to write the definitive history of the vocoder."
Dave Tompkins: Well, I actually did say that at some point. At the outset, I just wanted the opportunity to interview all these guys I grew up listening to. It was a good way for me to go back to weird childhood stories and the memories associated with this music that was completely new to me at the time. I was hearing it on the radio, the local black station in Concord, North Carolina. And then I would go to the record store in downtown Charlotte and look at the walls with rows of 12-inches and pick two to buy every week. So that was the genesis of the book, and it mutated from there.
Vocoder
Who To Blame?
Flu
The United States may provide an incubating ground for some flu strains, helping them migrate to warmer climates, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
For many years, researchers assumed that flu strains were mostly the product of China and Southeast Asia.
But a team at the University of Michigan, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Florida State University found that not all strains of flu circulating in North America die off at the end of influenza season.
Some of those appear to head to South America, and some migrate even farther, the reported. That may have happened with the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, they added.
Flu
Future Pope Refused Defrocking
Convicted Priest
The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn't agree to the discipline. The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law under Pope John Paul II frustrated and hamstrung U.S. bishops struggling with an abuse crisis that would eventually explode.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press from court filings in the case of the late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Illinois show Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, following church law at the time, turned down a bishop's plea to remove the priest for no other reason than the abuser's refusal to go along with it.
With the church still recovering from a notable departure of priests in the 1970s to marry, John Paul made it tougher to leave the priesthood after assuming the papacy in 1978, saying their vocation was a lifelong one. A consequence of that policy was that, as the priest sex abuse scandal arose in the U.S., bishops were no longer able to sidestep the lengthy church trial necessary for laicization.
New rules in 1980 removed bishops' option of requesting laicizations of abusive priests without holding a church trial. Those rules were ultimately eased two decades later amid an explosion of abuse cases in the United States.
Convicted Priest
Mayor Sues Local Newspaper
Gallup, NM
The mayor of Gallup in western New Mexico has filed a defamation lawsuit against the local newspaper publisher, claiming the newspaper intentionally harmed him by publishing articles about a 1948 rape case in which the mayor was implicated but never tried nor convicted.
An attorney for Gallup Independent publisher Bob Zollinger said his client is "innocent of all charges."
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in McKinley County District Court, seeks compensatory and punitive damages. Sam Bregman, the attorney for Mayor Harry Mendoza, said "it is time to put a stop to Mr. Zollinger and his paper" and that Mendoza plans to hold both accountable.
According to the lawsuit, the Independent published an article last July 11 that reported Mendoza had been "lying for more than 60 years about his involvement in one of the most brutal cases of gang rape in Gallup's history."
Gallup, NM
Gets Probation
Joyce Dewitt
Actress Joyce Dewitt has been handed three years of probation as part of a plea deal related to her 2009 drink driving arrest in Los Angeles.
The former Three's Company star has also been fined £340 and ordered to attend a nine-month alcohol-treatment program.
DeWitt pleaded no contest to two misdemeanour counts of driving drunk and driving while having a 0.08 per cent or higher blood alcohol level.
The 61-year-old sitcom star was arrested in July.
Joyce Dewitt
Mary Our Queen in Norcross
St. Gerard's
For decades, countless people from Buffalo have made the move from Rust Belt to Sun Belt. Maybe it was only a matter of time before one of its buildings would follow.
A Roman Catholic parish in the affluent northern suburbs of Atlanta has begun raising $16 million to import, piece by piece, a closed Buffalo church. The 99-year-old St. Gerard's would get a second life as Mary Our Queen in Norcross, an up-and-coming parish that has outgrown the 600-seat sanctuary that opened a dozen years ago.
Supporters see it as "preservation through relocation" of a unique structure that already shows signs of deterioration since it was closed in January 2008 as part of a diocese-wide restructuring.
While a dozen other vacant Catholic churches in Buffalo have been reincarnated as housing, office space or houses of worship by other religions, there had been no takers for St. Gerard's, occupying half a city block in a bereft neighborhood. Then came the Rev. David Dye's offer to buy it, with the condition he take it with him to Georgia.
St. Gerard's
Close Relationship With Mom
Better Romance
How well you get along with your parents in your teens might influence your romantic relationships a decade later, a new study suggests.
The results show a close relationship with one's mother in early adolescence was associated with better-quality romantic relationships as young adults.
The findings highlight the importance of the parent-child bond for building relationships later in life, the researchers say.
"Parents' relationships with their children are extremely important and that's how we develop our ability to have successful relationships as adults, our parents are our models," said study researcher Constance Gager, of Montclair State University in New Jersey. "So if kids are not feeling close with their parents then they're probably not going to model the positive aspects of that relationship when they reach adulthood."
Better Romance
Chicago Zoo
3 Stork Chicks
Someone's been bringing the storks babies at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.
The 142-year-old zoo suddenly has the making of a new flock of European white storks after three stork eggs hatched there in the last week. A mated pair hatched the eggs Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Lincoln Park's bird curator, Colleen Lynch, said Friday that it is the first time in the zoo's history that the species has hatched young there. Lynch said the storks have built their nest in a viewable outdoor habitat next to the bird house.
A more ominous chick also arrived at the zoo Monday, when two rare Cinerous vultures hatched an egg.
3 Stork Chicks
Weekend Box Office
'Shrek'
DreamWorks Animation's sequel "Shrek Forever After" remained the No. 1 movie for a second weekend with $43.3 million from Friday to Sunday. The film raised its domestic total to $133.1 million.
That easily topped the Warner Bros. sequel "Sex and the City 2," which was No. 2 with a $32.1 million debut that came in far below the $56.8 million opening weekend of its predecessor two years ago. Along with a $14.2 million haul in its first day Thursday, "Sex and the City 2" has brought in $46.3 million.
Debuting at No. 3 with $30.2 million was Disney's action tale "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time."
The modest results for "Prince of Persia" leave the movie's franchise potential in doubt. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose movies include the "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "National Treasure" series, was aiming for similar franchise treatment on "Prince of Persia."
'Shrek'
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