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Feel-Good Hits of the Summer, The Stooges, Jessica Alba and more...   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Monday, May 23, 2005 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: kbade

Karl

SUMMER MUSIC: The Guardian asked a wide swath of music folk (with links at the end of the piece) for their feel-good hits of the summer. Those who know me well will laugh when Sparks' Ron Mael says, "This summer I'll be listening to music from a car radio. Summertime is driving time and o­nly music from a car radio is permissible (preferably AM music). You should be barely able to hear the radio due to the wind noise from your convertible top being down." But there's plenty more summery goodness in the article, so read the whole thing (and if you're wondering about spring music, not to worry).

ROXY MUSIC: Friday's Guardian also had a nice (albeit over-the-top) profile of the influential band as it prepares to hit the reunion trail.

U2 BACKED LEONARD COHEN at a tiny club gig last week. The performance is expected to appear in an upcoming documentary o­n Cohen.

THE BOREDOMS: The Japanese art-rock/noise-punk band whose drummer is name-checked for the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," is profiled by Jim DeRogatis.

ELVIS WAS AN ALIEN, according to new book being published by VH1/Pocket Books instead of the Weekly World News.

REVENGE OF THE SITH shatters prior three and four-day box office records, grossing $158.5 million throught the weekend. Indeed, the flick raked in a record 50 million bucks o­n Thursday, with 16.5 million just from the midnight screenings.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE SITH: It turns out that those folks in costume at the premiere I attended were the Midwest Garrison, a chapter of the 501st Legion Star Wars Imperial Costuming Club. The group won't accept payment for appearances, requesting that event organizers make a donation to a charity. The Garrison o­nly does the villains; I stumbled across these two Leias, who are rather attractive for hardcore geeks and thus must be suspected of being seriously disturbed. Not that there's anything wrong with that; after all, Angelina Jolie has built an entire career o­n that combo.

...AND NOW, YOUR MOMENT OF SITH: The o­nly thing better than a Star Wars PEZ dispenser would be a giant Star Wars PEZ dispenser... that holds a dozen whole packs of PEZ!

DOCTOR JONES is finally going after the Lost Ark of the Covenant. I guess it's not in that big warehouse.

I SEE LONDON, I SEE FRANCE, I see Saddam Hussein filing some lawsuits.

IRAQ: Iraqi security officials say al-Zarqawi, was injured and almost captured during Operation Matador; U.S. intelligence officials say they have heard reports about al-Zarqawi being injured, but they have been unable to confirm them. FWIW, an Iraqi blogger reports that a source from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense told the Al-Watan Saudi newspaper yesterday that members from the Syrian army have joined the insurgents in Al-Qaiem against the US and Iraqi forces. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Sunni Arab clerics, political leaders and tribal heads ended their two-year boycott of politics in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq o­n Saturday, uniting in a Sunni bloc that they said would help draft the country's new constitution and compete in elections.

IRAQ II: Seven Iraqi battalions, backed by U.S. forces, launched an offensive in Baghdad o­n Sunday, targeting those who have attacked the dangerous road to Baghdad's airport and Abu Ghraib prison. Separately, Iraqi security forces captured Ismail Budair Ibrahim al-Obeidi, allegedly close to the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi o­n Tuesday.

DAVID CROSS lists "Albums to Listen to While Reading Overwrought Pitchfork Reviews" for the Pitchfork.

ALICE COOPER AND CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST have something in common.

THE THREE SURVIVING BEACH BOYS joined hundreds of fans Friday to unveil a state historical landmark at the site of the home of the legendary band's founding brothers.

THE STOOGES will be performing their 1970 classic, Fun House, at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in the UK. No word o­n ay U.S. dates.

THE CLASH topped Time Out London's poll of most legendary performances for their 1977 gig at the Rainbow Theatre. The band were supported by the other notorious punk bands of the time - The Jam, Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and The Prefects.

BRADGELINA UPDATE: People at advance screenings of Mr. & Mrs. Smith say Jennifer Aniston never had a chance.

WHICH IS MORE SAD? The international space station falling apart, or the international space station falling apart?

BLOGS may be overhyped, but cannot be ignored, according to Business 2.0

THE HUFF-PO: As The Huffington Post does not allow readers to comment o­n the celebloggers' entries, it's nice that Arianna has Greg Gutfeld acting as the fifth columnist.

IRAN: Iran's hard-line Guardian Council o­n Sunday rejected all reformists who registered to run in the presidential elections, approving o­nly six out of the 1,010 hopefuls. I suppose that's news.

AFGHANISTAN: A female VJ forced off the air two months ago under pressure from mullahs has been murdered.

MONGOLIA: The current election seems cleaner than the last o­ne. A runoff may be forced by a candidate who has seemingly come out of nowhere.

TOM AND KATIE UPDATE: Rush & Molloy of the New York Daily News sketches the backstory of how Tom Cruise obtained a ten million dollar judgment against the "erotic wrestler" who claimed in 2001 he'd been Cruise's lover. Of course, today Tom is all about the Katie-love, telling MTV that Holmes is "exceptional, special and extraordinary." He told Access Hollywood that what first drew her to him was her acting talent. No doubt.

CATS: Jenn Shreve compares her cat to exotic pets including the svannah cats (linked here previously), a robot cat and a cloned cat. And cute kitties are forced into brutal competetion at Kitten War.

DOGS: A St. Louis dog owner claims that a city ordinance that requires any stray dog to be spayed or neutered before being returned to an owner violates his religious freedom because he believes the practice will deny his nine month old rottweiler entry into heaven.

STARVING MENTALLY COMPETENT PATIENTS is o­ne way Britain's National Health Service proposes to save money.

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND: The Vienna Beef Co. and Alpha Baking Co., which manufactures S. Rosen's hotdog buns, will sign a formal "piece" treaty, vowing to package hot dogs and buns in quantities of eight.

ROBOT RACERS: DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which brought you the internet) are mounting Grand Challenges, with a two million dollar prize offered to any robot car that can drive 175 miles across the desert in 10 hours. The purpose of the event is to further research into what the Department of Defense calls "autonomous ground vehicles that will help save American lives o­n the battlefield.''

NEWSWEEK puts things o­n the covers of overseas editions that it is apparently too cowardly to put o­n the cover in the U.S. BTW, I have an extended rant o­n media coverage of the military that you can read if you want by clicking o­n the "read more" link at the bottom of today's links. Lest I be accused of hypocrisy, let me note that this is the Pate site, not mine; the opinions I express are my own. Consequently, I believe it is o­nly polite to refrain from putting a full-on rant o­n the front page.

JESSICA ALBA persuaded mogul Bob Weinstein to bid 100 grand for tennis lessons with Monica Seles and Boris Becker at an AmFar benefit by promising to appear in o­ne of his movies for free.

LINDA BLAIR used to channel Satan. These days, she's rhyming like the Johnny Cochran. Not sayin', just sayin.

THE AXE EFFECT: Attracting hot women is just fine; the bursting into flames, not so much.

THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT will decide whether a sperm donor is obligated to pay child support.

OUT: SINGLES BARS; In: Home Depot.

ANOTHER DAY, another cheerleading coach arrested in Orlando for allegedly trying to have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

SOMETHING AWFUL had this tale of maternal insanity turn up in o­ne of their forums, but the version I've linked (thanks to my co-clerk Debbie) saves you the trouble of downloading each photo manually.

THE MILITARY AND THE MEDIA: Apparently, if the White House criticizes Newsweek for a story about Quran desecration that ended up being retracted, there is no shortage of media outlets ready to retaliate with negative coverage of our troops. The Washington Post ran a story recycling detainee allegations -- a story the paper also has been forced to correct regarding the single named non-detainee. Reuters runs a story noting that the International Red Cross told the Pentagon in 2002 that detainees at Guantanamo had complained about Quran desecration. Given that ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno is quoted as saying, "The U.S. government took corrective measures and those allegations have not resurfaced," shouldn't that be the news?

The New York Times ran a long piece graphically detailing the abuse, torture and apparent homicide of detainees in Bagram, Afghanistan. Much of the misconduct described is outrageous; it deserves to be investigated, with prosecution and punishment as warranted by law.

The NYT story shows this is happening, as almost everything in the story comes out of the Army's investigative files of these incidents. The file was leaked by "a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths." But it's far from clear that the military's response, in which seven have already been charged and the investigation remains ongoing, is inadequate. Indeed, the follow-up story in the NYT shows that when the initial investigators did not recommend charges because they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the detainees' injuries, the Army took the inquiry away from agents in Afghanistan in August 2003, assigning it to a task force based at the agency's headquarters in Virginia.

Moreover, even if all 27 people currently under investigation end up guilty of some cahrge or another, that number represents about one-third of one percent of the 8,000 or so U.S. troops in Afghanistan at the time in question, primarily 2002.

The military may be guilty of covering up the two apparent homicides at issue (again, a matter for investigation and probable prosecution I would think), but the story otherwise does not contradict the military's assertion that the detainee abuse and torture was an isolated problem. Indeed, the first NYT story notes that "many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison." Thus, while the NYT attempts to paint a picture of systematic abuse, it also might be said that it was largely the same group of miscreants that are responsible for these scandals. And the NYT does not even suggest that this was an intentionally-created "goon squad" sent around the world to torture and kill detainees as some sort of official policy.

Furthermore, the NYT already reported most of this material on February 13th, March 12th and March 16th of this year.

So why did the NYT decide to recycle this story last week? Why did the NYT chose to print the inflammatory details of events two years past, still under investigation, the very week after the Newsweek story was used as a pretext by Islamic extremists to foment deadly riots in Afghanistan? Why does the NYT provide us with this detailed account of misconduct by members of the U.S. military, when its accounts of beheadings of innocent Americans by terrorists are so completely sanitized (and if you doubt this, watch a few beheading videos on the 'net)? And for a paper that so regularly opines that U.S. foreign policy should be more aligned with the U.N., why does a story cataloging abuse, torture and homicide by U.N. peacekeepers from Belgium, Canada and Italy only find two stories to cite from the purported "paper of record?"

Again, I am not trying to downplay any misconduct at Bagram. Nor is my reference to the photograph of U.N. peacekeepers roasting a child over a fire meant to suggest the "everybody does it" defense. Rather, I am wondering why the NYT and other major media outlets seem to have a double-standard in their coverage.

The fact that the terror groups are barbaric as a matter of policy makes their acts no less barbaric and no less worthy of the detailed examination given to the conduct and misconduct of our troops. I think it's fair to say that no member of these terror groups will face a court martial for sawing off the head of a contractor or aid worker. I think it's fair to say that the U.S. media had few qualms about showing us pictures of abuse Abu Grahib or portions of the video in which a U.S. soldier shot an enemy combatant in Fallujah, but almost no pictures of the aforementioned beheadings or of those who jumped to certain death from the WTC on September 11th, 2001. It might be argued that some media shy away from such images because they help advance the agenda of the terror groups. But that's difficult to maintain when the NYT and Los Angeles Times complain that they don't have enough pictures of dead U.S. troops in Iraq.

As I have focused on the NYT, let me note that I think NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman has a point when he criticizes the White House for not challenging the Arab Muslim world in the same way it challenged Newsweek last week. But I would also suggest that Mr. Friedman take a look at whether his own paper, let alone Newsweek, challenges the Arab Muslim world to live up to a higher standard.

Conversely, I referred to the "conduct and misconduct" of our troops above because so much of the good our troops are accomplishing goes largely unnoticed by the NYT, Newsweek and similar media outlets. I have previously credited the NYT for publishing one of blogger Arthur Chrenkoff's round-ups of under-reported good news in Iraq. I think it is fair to infer, then, that they are aware of Mr. Chrenkoff's blog. So I wonder if anyone at the NYT will notice the e-mail Chrenkoff has published from an American serviceman, reacting to the overall tone of the paper's coverage of the military.

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