JayIsGames last.fm group

If you've come here from JayIsGames, do consider joining the spanky new JayIsGames group at last.fm. If you've never used last.fm before, it used to be known as Audioscrobbler and is a small and inoffensive plugin you add to your music player (iTunes, Winamp etc). As you listen to music, last.fm records the tracks you've listened to, builds up a profile and recommends music you might like and people who like similar music to yourself. You can also post nifty charts to your website or blog, like the one I have in the right-hand column over there. (Be careful though - if you've carefully cultivated an image of pure indie snobbery, it will faithfully record your "little sister" listening to the latest Nickelback record.)

In the meantime, here's some of my recent high-rotations...

Kid Congo Powers - I especially recommend Power, which is both melancholy and kinda inspiring.

The Gun Club - I actually arrived at that site after downloading Jack On Fire from Puritan Blister, who in turn was stealing bandwidth from the equally awesome Something I Learned Today. (She's done it to me too, with the Bing Ji Ling link at my brittletina site, but I'll overlook it on account of Puritan Blister is tha shizznit.) I have to admit that, although it's good, so far I haven't heard anything I love as much as Jack On Fire (which, by the way, is still at that S.I.L.T. post, so get clicking). I Hear Your Heart Singing is pretty nice.

The Divine Comedy - is one of those bands I didn't actually realise I knew. I downloaded some of their stuff after Puritan Blister posted The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count, and realised, "Ah ha, they're the guys who did that cute I Don't Want To Die A Virgin song". If you're nostalgic for late 80s/early 90s commercial pop, go nuts!

Busdriver - I have no idea what this guy's story is, but a song with a title like Unemployed Black Astronaut promises many delights, and I was not disappointed. Stay with it, it's kind of irritating at first but it grows on you.

Thee More Shallows - I really liked the song posted at I Rock Cleveland, Night at the Knight School. It's just... odd. It has harpsichord, or something that sounds like it. Unfortunately, when I clicked through to their Myspace page I didn't fall in love the way I did with "Knight School". Maybe I should give it another go - "Knight School" takes a couple of listens for you to not delete with extreme prejudice. If you love Witch's Hat's Glodyany 1972, you'll probably enjoy Night at the Knight School.

They Might Be Giants most recent free download is called Employee of the Month. If you were to sign up for TMBG's free mp3 club, you also could enjoy this funky and surprisingly rockin' tune.

Icky Thump - because I hate you.

Ms Riza speaks

Statement of Shaha Riza Before the World Bank Board of Executive Directors, Ad Hoc Committee

Shaha Riza Statement
Board of Executive Directors, Ad Hoc Committee
April 30, 2007

I come before you today with my counsel, Victoria Toensing, at your request to assist you and the World Bank in resolving a problem that is not of my making. Let me summarize quickly what I consider to be the key facts of this difficult and painful situation, which has grown out of all proportion to the merits of the circumstance, and has now done harm to the Bank as well as to me.

1. My professional status at the Bank predates the arrival of the new President. I began work in the Bank in 1997.

2. There is no Bank regulation or staff rule that required me to leave the Bank in order to resolve this situation.

3. I was not given a choice to stay and, against my personal preference and professional interests, I agreed to accept an external assignment in 2005 upon the insistence of the Ethics Committee.

4. Against Bank rules and the Agreement I signed with the Bank, the details of the assignment and my personnel file have been leaked to the press and staff. As you well know my salary and grade level are quite common for World Bank staff that have years of experience, background and education similar to mine.

5. The cumulative effect of the decision made in 2005 and the recent media circus over the issue have done significant harm to my career, my personal well-being, and my prospects to continue the work I love and where my expertise resides.

Let me start with some personal reflections and then address each of these issues.

Personal reflections

Over the weekend I met a wonderful American woman who told me that I should fight back for “us”: WOMEN. It never occurred to me as an Arab and Moslem woman that one day I would be asked by an American woman to fight on her behalf. I take her plea as a tribute to all Arab and Moslem women who have fought and are fighting for their rights.

The irony of my working to ensure women’s participation and rights through the work of the World Bank and to be then stripped of my own rights by this same institution seems to have escaped most journalists, commentators and women’s rights activists.

I have been told by many friends at the World Bank and outside the Bank that I should speak out about my professional accomplishments to counter the one-dimensional and insulting portrayal in the media, not just in my defense but for the sake of all professional women--including women at the World Bank. It is difficult for me to do so because I have always tried to focus on my work and not on publicity and I simply do not know how to blow my own trumpet. However, in deference to the advice I have received from so many women I respect, I will quote the testimonies of my former managers in the World Bank in their evaluation of my performance.

My status at the Bank

As the gender coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa region (MNA) in the World Bank from 1998 to 2001, I was described as follows: “Shaha brought an unprecedented level of energy, enthusiasm, commitment and professionalism to this work….[and] an in depth understanding of issues and situations in the region that has enabled her to guide our approach to clients and made her a real asset to the region’s work.” (2002) This is indeed praise from Ngozi N. Okonjo-Iweala, a woman I admire and respect for her accomplishments in the World Bank who went on to become Finance Minister of her country, Nigeria.

In 2003, after I had been appointed the Acting Manager for External Communications, my supervisor wrote: “Her leadership on gender issues in her previous job in MNA has paid handsome dividends as MNA was way above the Bank average in mainstreaming gender issues in our work.” He continued: “What Shaha has done for gender (sensitization, practical solutions and effective outreach) she is well on her way to accopmplish for outreach and external communications. She is clearly operating at level GH and I strongly recommend that she be promoted to that level as lead Communications Specialist.” Jean-Louis Sarbib, Vice President for MNA, then goes on to justify his reasons for my promotion.

Despite his testimony, I never got the grade level promotion either as an in situ promotion, which accounts for 80% of promotions to grade H in the World Bank. Nor was the position opened for a competitive process, as I had requested from two consecutive MNA Vice Presidents. I can only attribute this to discrimination -- not because I am a woman, but because I am a Moslem Arab woman who dares to question the status quo both in the work of the institution and within the institution itself. The open hostility against me by at least one Member of the Board of Directors who the former US Executive Director, Robert Holland, referred to in his Wall Street Journal Op. Ed. of April 20, was well known on the Board and by Bank staff.

Request that I leave the Bank

It was a shock to me when, after the nomination of the new President, a senior member of management, in the name of three Vice Presidents, strongly suggested that I leave the Bank. I felt under attack by a powerful group that had no right to make assumptions or come to this conclusion given there was no Bank rule requiring my exit.

When, after eight years in the service of the World Bank, I was told that the Board’s Ethics Committee had resolved that I should leave-- through no fault of mine, but because of an alleged conflict of interest, it was not just a blow to my career and professional trajectory but also a blow to my faith in the ability of the institution to protect its staff, and to its claim over the past ten years, to pay more attention to gender and diversity.

I could not understand at the time or now why I was being singled out for this treatment when the then-Managing Director Shengman Zhang’s spouse, Lingzhi Xu, was working at the Bank and before her Marittta Koch-Weser, Caio Koch-Weser’s spouse, when he was a Managing Director. Neither of them was asked to leave the institution. It is very important to note that in all the years that I had worked in the World Bank I had not directly or indirectly reported to the previous President and my professional interaction with him was limited to a handful of times. Thus, I was surprised I was being asked to leave because under Staff Rule 4.01, Paragraph 5.02, the requirement is that neither person may “supervise[] the other, directly or indirectly, and their duties [should not be] likely to bring them into routine professional contact.” In this regard, recusal from all my personnel decisions, as requested by the President, should have sufficed to resolve any alleged “conflict” as recusal went further than at least one of the situations described above.

Leaks and recent exposure

As this artificially created crisis swirled around me, I have continued to work hard on what I have spent the last 20 years advocating: reforms, women’s rights and citizen’s participation in the Middle East and North Africa. Two years ago, my life and career were torn asunder. In the past month I have suffered anguish that I cannot fully describe at this proceeding because it is so painful. I have been made to appear to have no qualifications for my position when, in fact, I am clearly well qualified. I am sad to say leaks and off-the-record statements have encouraged hurtful and inaccurate media. Whatever happened to my Confidentiality Agreement with the Bank? Why were my rights as a World Bank staff member violated -- and who allowed them to be violated?

And so I come back to you, the ad hoc group, to ask you and other Members of the Board about what you plan to do about the breach of the Agreement signed with me -- and about the disclosure of my personnel file in violation of Staff Rule 2.01 “Confidentiality of Personnel Information.” As you know, I am a staff member of this institution and I have rights that this institution has not protected. Yet to date I have been offered no protection -- which would be offered any staff member -- against the leaking of documents that are, according to the formal policy of the Bank, part of confidential personnel matters.

Damage to Career

In normal circumstances I might not have minded being assigned a year or two to another agency. That type of assignment is not new to this institution. But I did not want to leave the Bank for five or possibly ten years with no guarantee of whether, or how, or at what level I could return. I was being banished from the Bank without regard to the quality of my work performance or my commitment to the mission of the Bank. To review a few of my concerns;

I was 51 years old and being asked to remove myself from a career path to an employment limbo for five, if not ten years. The rest of my professional career in the Bank was being adversely affected.

· I would be out of the normal World Bank structure, removed from peer and professional contacts that lead to new assignments.

· I would not have the ability to make lateral moves or seek other assignments to take me to the next grade.

Confronted with the prospect of being banished from the World Bank for at least five years, I fought for my rights through direct negotiations with Mr. Xavier Coll, Human Resource Vice President. I continue to believe that I should not have been asked to leave and that I was unjustly treated for reasons that I had no control over and still do not understand. I still question the role and motives of the Ethics Committee in its decision to ask me to leave. I was not, and I am not, satisfied with the arrangement. Nevertheless, despite my unhappiness and justified anger, I tried my best to accommodate the Ethics Committee in order to avoid a protracted dispute that would distract the Board, and management and staff from their important work.

Let me be very clear about my legal position in 2005. I was ready to pursue legal remedies. I would have preferred to fight the unfair situation. I only acquiesced to signing the Agreement so as not to cause turmoil at the Bank.

Equally important, I still question why this furor about the arrangement, which was made to remove me from the Bank, has erupted now. It is clear from the now public documents that it was the Chairman of the Board’s Ethics Committee, Mr. Ad Melkert, who advised my placement outside the Bank. I did not want to leave. Mr. Melkert stated in writing that I should be “relocated to a position” outside the Bank, and that “the potential disruption of the staff member’s career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record as confirmed by her shortlisting for the current job process and is consistent with the practice of the Bank.”

It is clear that the Ethics Committee had available any materials that they wished to review in regard to my placement outside. Indeed, the Chairman of the Ethics Committe stated in his letter to the President dated October 24, 2005, that “the outcome is consistent with the [Ethics] Committee’s findings and advice…and the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed.” This letter makes it obvious that the Ethics Committee must have looked at the Agreement and considered it satisfactory. If it did not, it was negligent in its duties.

By February 2006, all Board Members had to be fully aware of the arrangement due to the e-mail from “John Smith,” which specifically questioned my salary. The response of the Ethics Committee to this e-mail was that the allegations “did not appear appropriate for further consideration by the Committee.” The question therefore remains: why was this issue resurrected in recent weeks?

Moreover, during my negotiations with Mr. Coll, neither he nor anyone else ever suggested to me that my compensation package might violate Bank policy in any way. In his letter to me on September 1, 2005, Mr. Coll stated that the “perceived conflict is not of your making,” adding: “There is no precedent of this kind and no personnel policy that clearly applies to resolve it.”

It is certainly the case that World Bank salary rates are significantly higher than the pay of national civil servants, at least in North America. It is up to shareholders to review the pay scale of the World Bank job classifications. But I should not be singled out for isolated finger-pointing when my salary level is within the same range as staff in my grade level who were not forced to leave their jobs.

Final thoughts

I still hope that the Bank Board and Management will have the courage to admit that actions and decisions concerning the many diverse relationships in this institution have been addressed arbitrarily and without clear guidance. The careers of many spouses, particularly those appointed to country offices, are disrupted by ad hoc or arbitrary implementation of staff rules. I hope that this unfortunate episode will be used constructively to address these very pertinent issues.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to state my case. I request my statement be made part of the record. END STATEMENT

[Source: Foreign Policy's Passport blog. By the way, if you're one of the so-called "liberal" media who keeps referring to Ms Riza as Wolfowitz's "girlfriend", hang your head in shame. Props to NYT for choosing "domestic partner", but what the hell is wrong with just "partner"?]

Atheist Tabernacle Choir, Redux

Excellent post at 3 Quarks Daily discussing why the new Militant Atheists are a pack of nimrods.

Hitchens Weighs in, Now On The Religion Debate

I am particularly taken with this comment:

...they are committing what might be called Marx's Fallacy: criticizing a system without a viable altenative. Hitchens: don't expect the rest of us to listen to your angry, destructive ranting just because you're still angry at mommy and daddy for making you hate your genitalia.

I guess I'm gonna have to write the great Atheist Manifesto my fucking self.

The Atheist Tabernacle Choir

I have declared Monday to be the atheist Sabbath. Here are a big stack of songs about god or religion.

The Pogues
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
I'm going to leave it to the audience to discuss amongst themselves to what extent Mr. McGowan may have fallen from grace with God.

The Doug Anthony Allstars
Go To Church
Commies For Christ
Little Gospel Song
KRSNA

Johnny Cash
Oh, Bury Me Not
Why Me Lord?
Most religious converts' stories go something like "I was a child-molesting alcoholic ice-abusing Democrat-voting sex-addicted Hyundai-Excel-driving twunt UNTIL I FOUND LOVE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS/ALLAH/XENU". This makes no sense. The most vulnerable moments to my atheism are when the sun is shining, I've just lost 5kg, "Miss Free Love '69" has just come on the radio, I got 84% on my end of semester mark, my customer loyalty bonus has just come in from the gas & electric company, some big-ass college somewhere is offering me large quantities of cash to write my Ph.D on the feasibility and advisability of democracy promotion, and some unbelievably hot guy with ten-inch eyelashes and cheekbones like ginsu knives is boosting his supply of yin energy from my Grotto of the White Tiger.* Alhamdulillah! Why Me Lord? displays an appropriate level of wonder and gratitude.

*This never happens.

This Is Serious Mum
I Ain't No Christian But I Believe in Jesus
Perhaps, Ron, you would enjoy non-realist Christianity.

XTC
Dear God
We're totally all over the irony of addressing a deity you claim not to believe in, right?

God
My Pal
It's only fair to let him have his say.

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Thesis and eccch

This is great. Today, I wrote 750 words (see post below) on something that will gain me no credit anywhere, and less than 200 words on my thesis. (And nothing on my essay, although I'm less worried about that.) I have a really bad head cold and I'm not really up for writing anything substantial. It's such good timing - I have one week to hand in my essay and I'm a groaning ball of snot.

Economic development comes first

Two similar and very popular arguments are that economic development should precede the promotion of democracy, and that the development of the rule of law and human rights should precede the introduction of elections and parliaments.

Many commentators from the left and right agree that, rather than pushing for elections, the Bush administration/the US/the West should promote alternatives to Islamism, education and literacy, economic opportunity and human rights. Doing so, they believe, will promote the base for a stable transition to electoral democracy as the value of non-violent political transition becomes second nature.

Conservative realist Owen Harries actually puts a dollar price on entry to the democracy club, recommending that Western governments and development institutions concentrate on economic development, only targeting democracy promotion at non-rentier states with incomes of between USD $3000-$6000 per capita. He argues further that liberalism is a precursor to democracy, not the other way around, and laments the thought that the introduction of democracy would result in repressive, anti-Western Islamist theocracies similar to Iran. Conversely, the presence of an educated professional class is necessary to successfully introduce democracy. The possibility that an educated professional class may also be Islamist or sympathetic to Islamism is not entertained.

Thomas Carothers counters the idea that economic development comes first by highlighting the fact that autocracies are perfectly capable of, and desirous of, absorbing and neutralising any democratic tendencies inspired by higher incomes and education. Acknowledging (for instance) Fareed Zakaria's concern about the rise of "illiberal democracies", he points out that autocracy is inherently opposed to a functioning rule of law. The rule of law in a liberal democracy means that no-one is above the law, including the police, intelligence services, army and of course the President, Prime Minister or Brother Leader. As such, when these forces benefit from a situation of lawlessness or corruption, they are in a very powerful position to prevent any reform from happening.

The issue is of one of sequencing - whereas Zakaria would argue that autocrats do a bit of democratic fiddling and stop there, Carothers argues that autocrats do a bit of economic fiddling and stop there.

[This is where I conked out. If anyone has any brilliant ideas on where I can go with this, speak up.]


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TISM - Wham Bam Thank You Imam
TISM - Australia, The World's Suburb (we've had this before, but it's still available so enjoy)
Bing Ji Ling - You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC cover)

Conservative infighting over the Muslim Brotherhood

This is a very interesting discussion. Conservatives have taken up the cause of Western approaches to the various Muslim Brotherhoods in different countries (including Britain and France as well as Middle Eastern countries), using Reaganite reasoning that moderates protect against radicals, and that approaching China was successful in sidelining the USSR. For instance:

European Social Democracy was our key ally in the Cold War. Without it we would have lost Europe to the Communists. Without the Muslim Brotherhood, and with Poole’s policies, we stand to lose the Middle East and the entire Muslim world. The analogy fits: the Muslim Brotherhood is to jihadism as Social Democracy was to Communism.

In that article, (linked from the MB's very good English website) the authors defend their considerable conservative credentials and reject the idea that they have been soft on the MB. More interesting is their response to Joshua Muravchik:

Josh [Muravchik] adopted the method of the pundit. He consulted one source- MEMRI (an estimable but hardly an objective, scholarly one dedicated to providing the whole picture).

This kind of polemical method took root in the West in the 1960s in the sectarian debates emanating from the universities and the left. It was followed by the gradual takeover of the university, particularly the social sciences and the humanities by those whose first aim was to politicize it, and by politicizing it they meant to radicalize it. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. That pole in the partisan landscape was formed by the politically correct left in the university and much of the media, including Hollywood and the network news.

The neoconservatives arose as a reaction to this. They did not throw the first stone. More often than not they were right, especially on this issue of Communism, about which they (and I with them) have been corroborated by historical developments. Bill Bennett was right on the culture wars and that is a vast unexplored area of conservative agreement with Muslims, including many Islamists.

Aside from my disdain for his slagging of leftists, Leiken raises an interesting issue that I have often wondered about. So far, MB supporters in the West have been liberals - people like myself who would also support organisations like Helem, the Saudi Arabian Green Party, and other issues and causes that the MB is less than thrilled about. Conversely, enemies of the MB in the West have been conservatives. This causes me some degree of cognitive dissonance. Does - not - compute!

I have somewhat mixed feelings about what Leiken and Brooke's research will do to Western conservative approaches to Islamism. On the one hand, I despise sectarianism and feel that it is only correct that Western centre-right figures reach out to their counterparts in the Islamic world. The MB has already started doing this in the opposite direction, running (for instance) a positive article about Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. (They lifted it in its entirety from a website called Taqrir Washington, but this is not the place to discuss the MB's enthusiastic embrace of copyleft.)

On the other hand, I am naturally cold on the notion of conservatives gaining more power. I have no love for the notion of gender apartheid, and the increasing fashionability of 'men are from mars, women are from uranus' nonsense in the West gels nicely with Islamist gender separatism. The MB doesn't seem to have a very unified position on women's rights - Abdul Monem Al-Futoh seeks to assure us that women may hold the highest political office, but the official MB line is that "The only public office which it is agreed upon that a woman cannot occupy is the presidency or head of state." Well, that's sort of good - and a great improvement over some other Middle Eastern countries - and I note that the MB has started linking to the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights campaigns in its Women section. But my skin crawls at the idea that I might inadvertently contribute to making life more miserable for women, gays, atheists or other minorities in the Middle East via my support for the MB.

I endorse Leiken and Brooke's suggestion of engaging the MB, as I have written elsewhere. However, what I would say to the MB and what Leiken, Brooke or even Muravchik might say would probably be quite different.

Besides, it's just really fun to watch conservatives fight each other. You know you love it.

[EDIT] Now the New York Times gets in on the act with Islamic Democrats?, a look at the Egyptian MB and its practices, its need to deal with its Qutbian past, its attitude to Israel and Palestine, which comes to the conclusion that "Even a wary acceptance of the brotherhood... would demonstrate that we take seriously the democratic preferences of Arab voters." Even better, the writer's contact in the MB asks

“I’ve heard that even George Bush’s mother thinks he’s an idiot; is that true?”

What I've done so far

This is for the thesis. It's short and crap.

Chapter 4

Issues surrounding US democracy promotion to the Arab Middle East

Very few Western commentators have had the sheer nutsack* to come out and say "Democracy promotion is a terrible idea - autocracy is far better". Arguments tend not to be against the promotion of democracy as such, but about its timing, structure and the nature of democracy specifically. Many arguments rest on the specifics of Arab and Islamic society - some openly orientalist, others more structural, but all based on particular characteristics of the Middle East. In turn, Arab opinion ranges from absolute rejection of democracy (al-Qaeda and some of the more hardcore but non-violent Islamists), to qualified acceptance (mainstream Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhoods in different countries), to enthusiasm about democracy itself, tempered by resentment and suspicion about US motives and sincerity in promoting it.

In this section of the thesis, I will look at liberal/progressive critiques of democracy promotion, conservative critiques, and where these critiques overlap. I will then examine the Arab experience and their attitudes to democracy promotion. I will outline some of the programs used to promote democracy in the Arab Middle East and examine their benefits and faults.

Left wing critiques of democracy promotion in general fall into two spaces. The first is to dismiss all democracy promotion as imperialist and only interested in promoting capitalism (and often, not even capitalism, but simply getting access to resources). The second, more centrist position is to accept the virtue of democracy and the desirability of its promotion, but to criticise the methods used to do so as well as the content of the supposed democracy. Of course, an individual writer may vary between these two positions.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne criticised the administration for its handling of the war in Iraq, commenting that "Creating democracy where it has never existed is a long and painstaking process. You can't whip it up by buying a cake mix or holding a single election and declaring victory." [This doesn't go anywhere just yet, I have others]

Juan Cole blasts Bush for confusing elections with democracy, in language echoed by critics on the left and the right:

Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad.

I am not entirely sure what Cole would find "sufficient", but he is not alone in criticising Bush for failing to invest enough money or patience or time in democracy promotion. Interestingly, Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations uses the same reasoning to defend the freedom agenda, stating that

While Hamas and Hezbollah may have embraced the procedures of democracy, there is no evidence that they have embraced the rule of law, the rights of women and minorities, political and religious tolerance, and alternation of power.

Cook is writing in the heat of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, explaining that democracy promotion is not to blame for the current crisis. Whereas Cole blames Bush for being indecisive about whether he really wants elections in the Middle East and for undermining the Palestinian Authority to the point where Hamas looked like an attractive alternative, Cook blames a lack of pre-existing democratic structures for the strong showing of Hamas and Hizballah.

[ENDS]

That's about 500 words. Crap, innit?

*Don't panic, I'm not really going to use the words "sheer nutsack" in a thesis... :) Also the TNI link is just for your interest and to remind myself that I'm going to use it.

*************************************************************************

I get more hits on my site when I post an mp3, because of the Hype Machine, so I'm going to combine my mp3 posts with my thesis/essay posts.

In continuation of the Middle Eastern theme I started with Abjeez, I'm pleased to note that Iranian pop band 127 have updated their website, and it looks great. Unlike Abjeez, 127 actually live in Iran, and therefore face certain predictable obstacles. Their frustration seeps out on their media page - "127 has started recording material for another never-to-be-released album..."

Music from "second-world" countries (this term used to refer to Communist countries that were economically, but us Western imperialists would say not politically, developed) has often sounded really painfully dated as the only music bands could listen to in closed societies was smuggled in and not exactly cutting edge. (The first bands Iranians were permitted to listen to when Mohammad Khatami became President were Queen and Elton John. Hmmm, well thought out, homophobes!) Fortunately for 127, we're splat in the middle of an 80s revival, and 127's sound is fresh and enjoyable.

Perfect Esfahan Blues
My Sweet Little Terrorist Song (sounds quite a bit like Bob Dylan... it's good though)

There are songs I haven't heard yet at their revamped music page, so I'm looking forward to hearing them. Also, lead singer Sohrab Mohebbi has many interesting things to say about the music biz in general - this whinge about the state of the industry in Iran sounds eerily familiar to the sort of crap that gets tossed about in any tiny subculture, Western or not. This interested me, though:

Another issue is the state of Iranian bands. It is enough to look at the members of some of the best known (outside pop music) bands and we will find out that most bands don’t have permanent or regular musicians. In truth, several musicians make the rounds in these bands and only the lead singer is fixed. Imagine if {Jimmy Hendrix}, just because he was a good guitar player, had played with some or most of the rock bands of his time.

Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Also check out Zirzamin.se, the Swedish-hosted site for the Iranian music underground, and the Tehran Avenue Music Festival, about which more later.

Fauvist goodness

The Fauves' most recent B-Side of the Month is my favourite Fauves song ever, 'Suitcase of Carter Brown'. I actually recieved a copy of the 'Self Abuser' single back when I was doing my print zine (strangely enough called Ms. 45) , along with a t-shirt and a stack of freebies. Yay! Hurry up and download it before they replace it with something else - this is one of the Fauves' smoothest songs and, as they admit on their B-Sides page, "in the process of narrowing a list of recorded songs down to album length, there is nothing to say that there won't be instances where we have got it wrong and assigned perfectly good tracks with that dreaded pejorative: B-Side." You just don't understand how great this song is.

Suitcase of Carter Brown

"I don't understand women any more
I guess that means I didn't understand them before"

Cracked.com - The Shallot

Back in the '80s, Cracked was a lite version of Mad magazine. Today, it's a lite version of the Onion, a sort of JJJ to the Onion's RRR (I'm sorry, that's an Australian analogy - I don't really have any way of making it comprehensible to readers outside of, um, Melbourne). Still, I've only just discovered it, and if you love the Onion AV Club's Inventories, you'll be able to spend fucking hours poring over Cracked's lists. May I recommend:

The 20 Worst Cover Songs In Pop Music History
Oh, I wouldn't say the worst. Sheryl Crow's version of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' reveals Axl's true inner AOR nature. Celine Dion and Anastacia doing 'You Shook Me All Night Long' is indeed mediocre, but it's just mediocre - you can't kill a great song like that. (For evidence, track down a copy of Bing Ji Ling's version.) I've never dared listed to Duran Duran doing '911 Is A Joke'.

From N00b to Nerd: The 4 Stages of Life on the Internet
Real old people always claim things were better in their day, which of course is a lie. Human society used to consist of eating dung in a cave and now contains video games and mini-beef-burger pizzas, with an unbroken chain of improvements in between. When they say "Things were better in the old days," they really mean "Things were better for us, personally, when we weren't so ridiculously old, and all you idiots weren't here being young at us."
Yeah! Stop being young at us old people!

What to expect from sex (as dictated by internet porn)
AFTERWARDS, YOU'RE ALLOWED TO HOLD MONEY OUT AND DRIVE AWAY: There's nothing funnier than showing some dumb bitch who's boss. You are truly a real man. That woman's low self-esteem and willingness to fuck you have rightly earned her public humiliation and financial destitution. Can someone say hot? Go, you!
I'm not sure whether this makes me suicidal or homicidal. Thank you, Hizballah/Hamas/Tamil Tigers, for making this choice a non-issue.

11 Guy Movie Classics (And Why They Secretly Suck)
Kudos to anyone who admits that Donnie Darko and The Usual Suspects blow chunks. Note also that this list includes Terminator, but not Terminator 2. And rightly so. (If I'm not a guy, why do guys keep knocking me back with the line "You're like a brother to me"?)

...and on with the procrastinating

A quick post before I go to bed.

Firstly, I draw your attention to a new blog in the right-hand column ------> called I Rock Cleveland, which, as its name suggests, is all about the middle Americana. I've just downloaded a fuckload of stuff from there and it's mostly pretty good.

Secondly, I move from rock to electronica. I started downloading Femme Fatality's Octavia's Love Song a few minutes ago, and initially didn't like it. For reasons that escape me, I decided not to just shut down the mp3 window, and within minutes I found it had really grown on me. It has a catchy hook and "wooo!". Also the singer sounds a fair bit like Phil Oakey of the Human League.

Still with the electronica, We Are Wolves are from Canada. They play spiky electropop of a type that may be familiar to you (Peaches, Matmos, Le Tigre, just about everybody in the goddamn '80s revival), and which I rather like. Weirdly, they are signed to Fat Possum. Fat Possum! The blues label! WTF? Little Birds sounds like Octavia's Love Song - they're both using a similar hook - but it's a good one and they're dissimilar enough for it to be worth downloading both. (Little Birds has more of the rock.)

9000 words in 40 days (including 4000 words in 13 days)

I have stuff to write. Specifically, I have a 6000 word essay about the relationship between democracy and terrorism due in on the 4th of May, and a thesis about the Bush Administration's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East due in on the 1st of June. I don't know that I'm gonna make it, especially since I'm supposed to have a draft of the thesis in to my supervisor at about the same time I hand in my essay.

(By the way, the scare quotes around the words freedom agenda should not indicate to you that I'm doing a predictable liberal hatchet job on Bush, who, as we all know, is a chimp. A chimp with an IQ of 120* who speaks fluent French* and is an inspiring speaker provided you don't let him wander off topic. The point of the thesis is that, initially, the "freedom agenda" did in fact represent a genuine break with US foreign policy history, at least to some extent, until the Administration got spooked by the rise of Hamas and inhibited by the sheer shitfulness of the war in Iraq. If you call yourself a liberal, you should want to support democratic developments in the Middle East, including anyone in the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas or whoever, who shows signs of co-operation. The idea is excellent; the execution is appalling, Crack-man.)

*My sources are liberal - Ivo Daalder in America Unbound for the first, New York Times for the second. The NYT article was one of those "What would you ask the President?" things they do around election time, and the head of some US-France friendship society mentioned in her contribution that Bush speaks fluent French. It puts the whole "The French don't even have a word for entrepreneur" thing into perspective.

Anyhoo, it's fairly obvious from the posts below that I've been procrastinating my little (that is, not little) arse off via the pleasures of Blogger, despite the fact that this blog has about two genuine readers a day (out of about 30 hits per day, about two are not search spiders). So what I decided to do was to start writing directly into Blogger. That way, I can copy and paste what I write into my thesis template, and voila! The illusion of procrastination whilst doing real work! The two real readers are most welcome to comment.

Free Monem!

A while ago, I posted about the arrest of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer on charges of "insulting Islam" and "defaming the President". Recently, a level of absurdity has been introduced as the authorities arrested Muslim Brotherhood activist Abdul Mon’em Mahmoud, presumably on charges of being a member of the illegal Brotherhood. Human rights activists suspect Monem was probably arrested for writing about torture and illegal detention in Egypt, which makes sense given that the Egyptian authorities don't evenly and equally enforce the ban on the MB. The government uses the Brotherhood when it sees fit, and squashes them when it suits.

One important reason that Western bloggers, human rights activists etc should support Monem is that he and other Muslim Brotherhood writers have spoken out in support of Kareem, despite Kareem's open contempt for Islam and Islamists. This indicates that at least some MB members are starting to "get" why freedom of speech and liberal democracy exist. It's not just because we want to insult Mohammed and have orgies! If we (ie The West) want Islamists to start behaving themselves and showing respect for democratic principles, we are obliged to offer carrots as well as sticks. Co-operating with Islamists on human rights issues, whilst still firmly criticising them when they fall down on these issues (ie anti-Jewish, anti-Coptic sentiment) will send a firm , consistent message of Western values, which are largely compatible with Islamic values.

In addition, there is a far greater human rights issue here. The Mubarak regime targets all opposition, not just Islamists or leftists. Even quite middle-of-the-road political parties have difficulty registering to operate as parties, and they have to apply to the government to register. In the West, parties have to apply to a government-funded body to register, and they may be forbidden/delisted for various reasons, but (for instance) left wing parties don't have to apply to the conservative party for permission to operate, nor right wing parties to the Labour party.

In Monem's case specifically, I don't yet have words of a petition or a specific campaign for him, but the Free Kareem! guys have stepped up to the plate on his behalf with news of his detention, and if you wanted to fire off an angry letter to the Egyptian Justice Minister, they have details right here.

Blog Orgy II: A quick one, please please please please please

Dave Bloustien, Beastly, Imperial Hotel, Cnr Bourke & Spring Sts, Melbourne, 7.15pm (Sun 6.15)
Dave Thornton, EuroMission, Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton South, 9.15pm (Sun 8.15pm)

Dave Bloustien is a nice, gentle guy and Beastly is a nice, gentle show. It didn't help that I'd already seen a number of the jokes at a show Dave did at Three Degrees a couple of weeks ago ("Does anyone know the difference between a pigeon and a dove?" *thinks - yes, you told me last time*), but this is not the sort of show where you'll wee your pants with laughter. Bits are very funny, and the small size of the room creates a really cosy atmosphere for audience interaction that isn't too threatening. It made me think of Gerard McCulloch's Gerry of Arabia show from a few years ago - that wasn't particularly funny, but it was excellent as an eye-opening tour of the Arab world, and this was a good intro to some Africa issues for people like me who are ignorant and a bit overwhelmed by starving black people, HIV and child soldiers. I kinda felt like I would have enjoyed more discussion of Africa issues rather than less. This review of Beastly in Sydney highlights the fact that he's an educated, intelligent, interesting guy whom you'd like to buy a beer for and have a chat with. Whether this equates to $15 entry for the show is, I suppose, up to you.

Dave Thornton I'm having a bit more trouble writing about. EuroMission is piss funny, not so much because of the jokes - if you've ever seen any decent comedian do Amsterdam material, guess what, it's in this show - as because Thornton's facial gurning and physical humour adds a layer of absurdity over solid but standard jokes. The general theme of the show - Dave tours every country that's ever won the Eurovision Song Contest - is propped up with video footage of Eurovision (but not too much, thankfully) and interspersed with emails to Mum and Dad. (If you're sitting close enough, lean forward and read the "address book" at the side of the Hotmail screenshot - highlights include "Andrew Bolt [cockhead@...].) Highlights include getting checked for STDs in Ireland, parking naked in France, getting raped by Viking hordes, and remembering Oktoberfest. Which starts in September.

That's not why I'm having trouble writing about it - in fact I can just stop here and say go see it, it's ace - the reason it's hard to write about is because Thornton looks like a fucking Neu Bogan Vogue model (you know, the ones with the $150 mullets) and I spent the whole show going I WANT TO SWALLOW THAT GUY LIKE FREDDY KRUEGER IN NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST III: DREAM WARRIORS. He's like Wil Anderson - modelicious looks, groovy clothes, bong jokes - but without being a smarmy twat. Given that Anderson is universally reviled by men because their girlfriends want to blow him, it would be interesting to see if Thornton can win over male audiences even as their girlfriends stand up the front flashing their Brazilians.

Check out Dave's gallery, which includes a pretty good example of his stuff from Good Morning Australia on video, and you can tell me if I'm smoking crack on the modelicious issue. And go and see the show - I haven't seen any mainstream media reviews, which is just fucking wrong.

Blog Orgy I: A quick one, while he's away

At Trades Hall last night to see Dave Thornton (see above), I picked up a blank CD with a friendly note attached:

Free CD!
15 tracks and 2 remixes for your pleasure

If you like the music please consider making a donation via paypal from my website, or at least just say hello...

www.chinchilla-music.co.uk
www.myspace.com/chrischinchilla

Chris used to be a member of Art Brut, and despite the .co.uk suffix, currently lives in Melbourne. This means that if, like myself, you lack funds to make substantial donations, you could perhaps check out a live performance. You could also spend a while entertaining yourself at the Chinchilla Music website, which contains much entertainment and food for thought.

Eddeaa, Abjeez

This is the first in what I hope will be a series on music from the Middle East and its diaspora. I've discovered a few bands I really like, many of them Iranian - there's just something about repression that stirs creativity, or it does if you can avoid getting locked up.

These ladies ("Abjeez" = "sisters" - their brother is their soundman) are Persian by way of Sweden and the US, collaborating between continents via the internet. Their sound is highly original, mixing reggae, pop, flamenco and anything else you can hear (I can hear a kazoo, myself). This is an irresistibly catchy song with variety in its 4 and a half minutes. It's in Farsi, so of course I can't understand it (curse living at the arse end of the world!), but I get the impression that it's funny... (Eddeaa means "Pretension".)

More to the point, this is a great video - it takes me back to the 80's when video was exciting and new and people actually gave a shit about how the video looked. (Yes, I am fully aware that I'm getting all "In my day I had to walk 20 miles through ice and snow in bare feet to watch MTV at my cousin's house", and that for every Sledgehammer there was ... a bunch of other forgettable shit. The point is that this video is of the calibre of Sledgehammer, OK?) It was made by the husband of one of the sisters, who rejoices in the name Dr. Frank J. Suckdasti. I don't think this version is very high quality - try visiting their website for better quality.

Hear some samples from their album Hameh (Everyone) at CD Baby, and particularly enjoy that album cover!

Well, now you know

"women have very little idea of how much men hate them"

Slow Review seeks submissions

If you love reading the AV Club but chafe at the fact that they don't accept submissions, and find yourself writing 1000 word responses requiring several posts in order to adequately counter the editor's delusions about the historical and cultural importance of the original TV series of Charlie's Angels*, Slow Review may be for you.

Slow Review's call for submissions is

looking for essays that take their time making a point, that measure the local fauna and customs and shades of grey and thereby cover much pleasant journey-time, that gain in persuasion that way.

Imagine a group of jazz musos having a late-night session just for the love of playing. You tend to write better or more generously about a subject you know or respect when limits on time and space are absent or irrelevant. So give it the red-carpet prose treatment it deserves; write from what you know and love.

Generally speaking, it's about a tendency to rescue/revive/reveal stuff that can't, won't or wasn't promoted first time round or which simply disappeared — with of course plenty of comic leeway. It's whatever corresponds with the Slow Lifestyle; to develop a kudos aesthetic through items only the Slow Review would claim and celebrate with due consideration.

No reviews of product less than six months old, please. Personally, I think it's way cooler to reconsider a lost classic (I mean, Office Space wasn't a box office hit, but you'd be surprised how many people know what you mean when you lisp "Ethcuthe me... you haffe my thtapler...").

*Which I was banned from watching as a child, because, as my dad said, "It's shit."

Witch's Hat Huzzah

Are you indie, but sometimes feel a bit goth? Do you love Spinal Tap, Goblin Cock, Tenacious D, Steeleye Span, early Brian Johnson era AC/DC or Talking Heads? Do you really, really, really miss Freddie Mercury? Do you own a copy of Dracula or The Hobbit, but never actually read it? Do you crave the majesty of rock, the pageantry of roll? Witch's Hat are here to rescue you from your boring, dragonless existence.

Made by nerds for nerds, Witch's Hat walk a very fine line between pisstake and sincerity. It's like cheese, but really high quality cheese. Not all of their lyrics are ripped straight from Dungeons and Dragons, but the ones that are are delivered with a booming conviction that makes you want to pick up your crazy bastard sword and swing it about wildly and ineptly. Singer Greg is teh living David St. Hubbins (and I seriously want to hear these guys cover "Stonehenge"), despite an unnerving resemblance to Jack Black. (That's him on the cover of the magnificently titled Mastery Of The Steel, but as we can see in the video for "Huzzah!", he is a homely dude with moobs. But what moobs!)

It's kinda frustrating being around the other side of the world when you find bands like this, because you just know they're probably about a billion times better live. Check out the video for "Huzzah Huzzah" - that audience is having way more fun than you are right now.

Thanks to Nina from Emergency Umbrella Records for the heads-up. Emergency Umbrella is a diverse collective of bands from Columbia, Missouri , covering art-rock, metal, indie, chamber pop (?!) and all sorts of interesting stuff.

By an amazing coincidence, I've already done that twice...

Arab Psycho Therapy, Arab Psycho Therapy, whatcha gonna give me?

I can't quite tell if this is serious.* Even worse, I now can't think of a band name, even though I'm always thinking of totally cool band names when I'm out buying milk or somesuch. If you're in a band and need a name, though, try "FuN tiGer !.!" or "my brother wore army shirt".

*I'm thinking not... but it's hard to say... and it's a lot more fun than "If you were a car, what sort of car would you be?"

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

But where will all the staff come from?

... there are shortages of, for example, engineers, and in particular mining engineers; banking and finance lawyers; auditors; boilermakers; cheese-makers; and train drivers.

Clearly, I'm in the wrong field.

The Thesis Fairies

It's 9th April. I have half of an honours thesis due in on 1st June. I have a 6000 word essay on the relationship between democracy and terrorism due in on 4th May. So, that's less than 4 weeks for the essay (I don't think they'll accept "There isn't one" as my full text, even though that's pretty much it), and less than eight weeks for the thesis, which has maybe another 6000 words to go, plus maybe 1500 words of conclusion. I've never had to write this much before, and I don't think my undergraduate degree has prepared me well for this workload. Seriously - you go from little baby essays to novellas. It's like, "OK, you've boiled a few eggs, now let's try making a five-course formal dinner involving souffle, thousand-year-old eggs, bombe alaska and homebrewed poitin".

To add a razor blade behind the eyeballs, I'm currently bleeding so hard I'm crying out for heroin, and I can't afford my happy pills, which doesn't just make me unhappy - I can deal with unhappy - it makes me gluggy and snotty, like a Clayton's head cold. I am basically out of action for one week, and obviously, there's one more due before the thesis has to be handed in. My sleeping habits have gone to hell for various reasons, meaning that I sleep until some stupid o'clock in the afternoon then feel like shit until I go to bed again.

It's times like these I like to try to invoke the Thesis Fairies. These mythical beings not only work for free, they leap into your ear, crawl into your brain, and pull out the delicious, gooey reasoning inside. The point is not that you haven't done your research - it's that you HAVE, and the Thesis Fairies crawl among the neurons and axons, find out what has to go on the page and where it came from, and voila! All your boring writing and referencing is done for you when you wake in the morning, refreshed and perky, to find your computer on and your fully footnoted (Harvard), beautifully and individually written thesis, which will totally pass a plagiarism Google because it's steaming fresh from your brain, all prettied up and exported to PDF ready for printing and distribution.

How do I call up these fairies? I certainly have enough blood to make a very decent sized pentagram, but it's a condition of my lease that I have to have the carpet cleaned before I move out, and I'd like half a chance of getting my bond back. Incense? Chanting? Poitin? What do you do to summon the Thesis Fairies?

Favourite webgames

When I'm trying to procrastinate on my honours thesis - which is pretty much all the time, given that it's due in on June 1 - I write reviews for Jayisgames under the name Ms .45. It gives me that feeling of having written something as well as justifying my dicking-off. Since I haven't written anything all weekend I figured I'd compile a list of my favourite little webgames.

Menulis
Gorgeous little hand drawn game where you have to get past obstacles to get to bed! Unlike a lot of point-and-click games, this one makes complete sense - things actually work the way you'd more or less expect them to in the real world. Looks pretty, takes maybe five minutes to solve. Check out A!bat, by the same game designers.

Sprout
This is not a game that you really need to replay - once you've solved it, you can feel all warm and fluffy. Until you do solve it, though, you can enjoy the hand-drawn graphics and funny results of making the wrong move.

The Impossible Quiz
This is hilarious. Answers are either severely literal or just bent. My favourite is the "question" where you don't have to do anything except get the characters to beat the crap out of each other.

Grow nano v.1
To be honest, everything at Eyezmaze is incredible, but I'm highlighting this one because I play it with my niece sometimes. It's fun and cute, but not amazingly difficult - for a (comparatively) more grown-up challenge try Tontie.

More to come...

City of b3ta bedroom infringement

How dirty are you?

I owe somebody, preferably not Rob Manuel, £370.50 (that's a whopping $901.98 AUD, or a marginally less whopping $726.99 USD - gotta love those .99c) for my, er, crimes. What I want to know is, why is anyone getting a fine for recieving oral? You should get a little trophy for that!

No more End-Times ads!

Bloggers must be delighted to hear that they'll soon get a choice over what Google ads appear on their blog. I'm sure we're all aware of our favourite alternative blogs running ads that are diametrically opposed to their actual position (my favourite being Palestine-related or pro-Arab blogs which end up with "Israel/Palestine: The End Times Are Nigh! Download Free E-Book"), and have to post plaintive messages saying "We don't have any choice, Google generates these ads by keyword, just ignore them!".

However:

For web-based publishers, the option offers a way to leverage the trust of their audience, Knietz said. For example, bloggers could recommend a particular realtor or law firm that advertises on their site.

"If they are a trusted source, they will eventually drive business to their advertisers," Knietz said.

This could end up creating ethical dilemmas, however, especially if publishers are tempted to recommend high-priced law firms who offer to pay a lot for customer leads.

Dan Gillmor, director of the Centre for Citizen Media, said "These arrangements will raise some interesting questions, such as whether site publishers run the ads likely to make them the most money, whether they believe in what the advertiser is selling or not. So there'll be important issues of transparency and disclosure, too."

There's another issue, though: Bloggers will now have to take some responsibility for the ads that appear on their site. You would have a much harder time saying "The ads aren't my fault, but click on them anyway just to generate us some money", especially when the model is now pay-per-action rather than per-click.

This raises interesting administrative issues. Would you prefer to put the extra work into carefully selecting your ads, making sure they meet your ideological standards (which don't have to be amazingly high, provided the advertiser isn't a fierce opponent of your cause), choosing advertisers where your audience are likely to actually DO SOMETHING on the clicked-through site, putting the ads in aesthetically desirable positions... or would you prefer to throw your hands up and just go "fuck it, you're getting end times ads and if some loonbars want to send off for the free 750-page book, that advertiser's cash is as good as any"?

It also raises the issue of audience reach. What will happen to blogs who have a tiny audience? (A big hello to everyone who comes here from jayisgames, Kingdom of Loathing, Abu Aardvark and The Arabist - you're pretty much alone here. Issandr, this is Jay, Jay, Issandr. Grab a beer.) Will advertisers have the choice of rejecting ads to go on blogs that they don't approve of, either ideologically or commercially?

If you're hardcore, you can reject the idea of ads entirely. Just keep in mind that, as in Soviet Russia, ads may also reject you!

Shock! Comment is Free item concerning Islam actually half-decent!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the responses to this Comment is Free post by Abdul Monem el-Futouh, spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, was not so much the steaming pile of bilge that CiF posts concerning Islam tend to be. The responses give a good range of perspectives on the Muslim Brotherhood's activities and the concerns that regular Egyptians have about them. I think it's a bit rough to judge the MB on activities that took place 50 years ago - I don't know if you've noticed, but practically no-one outside the hard left raises Israeli Irgun activities except in a historical context - but there are still areas of current concern that are worth monitoring, such as their lack of support for freedom of artistic speech and, yeah, their funneling of support to Hamas (although I don't know how much actual support has been forthcoming - I assume they were responsible for the contents of some of the briefcases Hamas officials were trying to bring into Gaza by car). Oh yeah, I wrote an essay about them recently that covers some of these issues.

The solution to the Middle East's problems

If this is the worst that Israel inflicted upon the world, many geopolitical problems would be solved.

Really, that whole article annoys me. Aside from Mr. Raphael's extracurricular activities (and, more to the point, his incompetence at being discreet), he is described as "a polished media performer" who has served as Ambassador for Israel in several countries. Yet "his adventure in San Salvador revived last year's criticism from a public service watchdog that the ministry lacked transparency in recruitment and promotion procedures".

It's quite possible that Israel's Foreign Ministry does lack transparency, but I fail to see what that has to do with Mr. Raphael's hobbies.

From 'Aqoul:

Even worse and most significant, however, is punishing that all too rare thing these days --- an Israeli diplomat associated with a compromising position.

Give me back my headless lion woman!

Fighting for Iraq's culture

Great little article by one of the Marines in charge of preserving any Mesopotamian antiquities that may still exist in Iraq (there's a great opportunity for some enterprising screenwriter to do "Grandson of Indiana Jones" right there), in which he acknowledges the pushing-shit-uphill aspects of his job - "diverting resources to save cultural artifacts during a war may seem like cutting funds for the police and firefighters in order to expand the public library."

He raises practical issues to drum up support for his activities, such as the strong possibility that if you buy antiquities of dubious provenance you may well be supporting the insurgency (this may not be a problem for you, of course) and that in not looking after the antiquities, the West is demonstrating to the Arab world that we don't give a fuck about their culture, losing the battle for hearts and minds.

I have another issue, which is that Mesopotamian antiquities aren't just Arab culture, they're everyone's culture. Mesopotamia was the site of the earliest literate and Bronze Age societies: that is your and my heritage, whether you are Arab, African or Anglo. It is called the Cradle of Civilization for a reason.

Here's some examples of what we're missing when antiquities in Iraq are looted:

Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago holds some gorgeous little statues, including the Pazuzu demon, whose enmity towards the demon of childbed illness makes him handy to have around when you're giving birth. This institute also has more information about the quest to recapture artifacts stolen from the Iraq Museum.

Treasures of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad Extremely rich site of artworks, like these two new wavers and this gnarly old bat. Also check out the Iraq Cultural Heritage Worldwide site, which brings together artworks and articles from the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of New York (there's a Swedish museum mentioned, but its site doesn't seem to be online). You can use the drop down menu to navigate, then break out of the frame by opening links in a new window.

What I love about the Mesopotamian sculpture in particular is that it seems to be vastly more naturalistic than other antiquities, the gnarly old bat above being a prime example. The fact that statuary seems to have retained its eyes (like so) more often than others seems to help. Even this lioness has a kind of pathetic facial expression. Whereas, for instance, Egyptian artworks have a distancing effect - I can appreciate how beautiful and important they are, but the Iraqi antiquities make me feel like I'm looking at photographs of ancient people.

That said, I don't know anyone who looks like this.

My my, hey hey, it's Dolorean

When I first visited Dolorean's Download.com page and downloaded The Search, I thought "whahey, these guys really like Neil Young huh." Big, BIG surprise when I visited their wordpress page and the first post is about... oh go on, you'll never guess...

They also have an artist page at YepRoc Records, which is itself a rich repository of streaming media and downloads that I must mine further.

In the meantime, could someone please tell me which Neil Young song The Search reminds me of?

Free Kareem

If you're reading this blog, you're probably already familiar with the recent arrest of the Egyptian blogger calling himself Kareem Amer. Failing that, here's a brief recap:

Egypt is an authoritarian republic with tokenistic elections and restrictions on the press and freedom of association stop Egyptian authorities have arrested or threatened a number of bloggers in Egypt from various sides of politics stop Kareem Amer was arrested and sentenced for four years in prison for ‘contempt of religion’ and ‘defaming the President of Egypt’ stop Bloggers from all sorts of backgrounds have stepped forward to support Kareem stop contact the Free Kareem website to see if you can help in any way.

Check out Marc Lynch's "Brotherhood of the Blog" in the Guardian's almost-useless Comment is Free section (which really ought to be retitled Opinions Are Like Assholes) - he makes the excellent point that, whether you like the Bro's or not, they are entitled to the same transparency, justice and freedom of expression as the rest of us.

In this context you may also like to consider signing up for Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign, where you agree to post blocked text on your site. This may not be too useful for people using Blogspot, which is a seriously blocked domain, but if you have a university or private website it could be valuable.

That MB essay I promised

About three posts ago, I mentioned an essay that was currently being procrastinated via the magic of online comics. Here it is. If you actually know anything about the topic, I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

http://yoyo.its.monash.edu.au/~baker/Kerr-EgyptianMB.pdf

Tex Arcana

Ever craved a horror comic that looked like a cross between Gahan Wilson, Robert Crumb and Maurice Sendak and read like Evil Roy Slade?

Today is your lucky day.

Fair and Balanced Reporting

In the interest of countering some of the more creative editing on the part of Melbourne's high quality TV news services (this would be why I don't watch television), I'm posting this PDF of photos of the recent G20 protests from indymedia. This is not to justify the violence that did take place or claim that the protestors were poor little innocent victims (although I'm sure some were), but simply that these photos are an accurate reflection of what I saw on the day.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/uploads/stopg20_pics.pdf

In the interests of balancing the balance, I should point out that police were walking around the State Library lawns handing out flyers on what constitutes breach of the peace or somesuch, so that protestors would know what would get them into trouble. At least, I think that's what they said - I'm guessing from what I heard of a conversation between an ossifer and a group of kids in front of me - because obviously my friends and I look far too respectable to be the kind of people who go around throwing rubbish bins, and as a result I don't have the flyer.

I have a complaint of my own. When I attended what I now think of as "the original S11", in September of 2000, there was a genuine carnival atmosphere, a huge crowd of genuinely diverse people, and a real sense of possibility. This time around, there was the prospect of such things - I attended on the strength of this flyer, promising a "Really Really Free Market". Great idea! I stocked up on books to take in, looking forward to sharing resources in an open source, creative commons, free science for the benefit of humanity spirit.

What I got was to a large extent the usual gang of idiots standing up and regaling us with their bullshit grandstanding, then a bit of padding around the streets, then the predictable protest stuff - bit of effigy (to be fair, I don't think they burnt the effigy or it would've been on the news), bit of doof, lot of boredom. Although I enjoyed the costumes and the signs, I didn't see much of practical actions for moving forwards on world issues.

Which invites the question, "well, what are you doing about it, smartarse?" A very good question, and a question to which the answer is most definitely "fuck-all".

I'm supposed to be writing an essay

What do you do when you're supposed to be researching and writing a 5000 word essay on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood? Why, read comics of course!

I found Thingpart through the Daytrotter website and have been stuck here for two hours. Highlights include:

Number 47

Number 42

Number 57

(They have titles, I just don't wanna blow the punchline.)

Daytrotter is surprisingly good. I've never thought of myself as one of those indie square glass and cardigan wearing hipsters, but I've found a lot of music I quite like on the Daytrotter site, although it usually takes a few listens to grow on me.

Go here for a mindless orgy of downloading, but you should probably check out the artist pages (and the illustrations). People I've liked recently have included Langhorne Slim, The High Strung and Thao Nguyen.

Missed Easily - The High Strung

should totally be released as a single.

Anti yatakallamina aarabii?

I've been taking Arabic* classes for the last few months, with limited success - I can read tolerably well, especially once I already know a word, but I can't pronounce worth shit and I need more vocabulary. I occasionally check out news at Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt Daily), not because I can actually read it, but because it's kinda exciting to realise that I can now easily read English words like "Condoleezza Rice" and "Washington" as well as common Arabic words (from, in, and - hotel, long, old).

If you scroll down on this blog, there's an interesting post on the use of words like "alhamdulillah" and "insha'allah". Suffice to say, the author likens them to the invocation of God in everyday English.

*Modern Standard - my teacher is Egyptian (the New Zealanders of the Middle East), which I assume will have interesting effects on my accent.

Master Higgins, not to be confused with Missy Higgins

Master Higgins at Download.com

It's so rare for me to like music instantly that I thought I should bring this to your attention. (And yes, I'm aware that things I like instantly may fade in my appreciation, much as the hottie who tutored Politics and the Media 101 becomes less hot over time and distance, but I instantly liked the Hoodoo Guru's "Miss Freelove '69" and that hasn't faded at all. I also couldn't find it online to link to it, but when I first heard it back in 1991 - which I just had to look up, and I can't believe it was in the 90s, I could have sworn it was late 80s - I ran out and bought it immediately, and I regret it not. It's utterly worth paying for. Oh yeah, I'm really drunk in case it's not obvious.)

The download.com description says "Electronic music that's sample-based, silly, and with no deeper intentions than to make people dance", and, more to the point, he's a 21-year old Swedish student. I'm getting a girly-fat just thinking about it. (A cholesterol?) Unfortunately I can't understand Swedish (Ana atakallam Aarabyy, qaliilan), but if you do, his website is at www.masterhiggins.se. The recommended track was "That's Right You Heard Me. Have Him Drop His Pants.", and I also downloaded "Queen of New Orleans". Go ape! (Or go vespa, I don't care.)

Seen at today's rally in support of Lebanon

*A0 sized posters of the images of the little girls signing Israeli bombs – with the words "Olmert! Leave the kids out of it!"
*Hizballah supporters carrying a picture of Nasrallah, signs saying things like "Only evil is dumb, deaf and blind to the truth. Bush there is no running the truth will prevail. It's coming!". "Killing our people and feeding the media with your lies won't damage our hope! Isreal leave us alone!".
*the words below, with a picture of a victim of the bombing and the website http://www.lebanonunderattack.com/
-Impostor
-Slaughter
-Ridiculous
-Atrocious
-Evil
-Liars
-Inequitable

Later, during the march, people wearing Lebanon baseball caps (as in this photo) were vigourously chanting "Hiz-bal-lah! Hiz-bal-lah!". This includes unveiled women in heaps of makeup and groovy clothes – draw your own conclusions. There was chanting in Arabic, which obviously I didn't understand.

*Representatives of http://www.architectsforpeace.org/
*Women for Palestine
*Signs...
- "You are the chosen people choosing to be assholes!"
- "Zionists prefer genocide to justice"
- "What about Lebanon's right to exist?"
- "You don't just look like a devil you are one" (Bush with huge red devil horns)
- "Condi – we don't want your new Middle East!"
- "For just 3 abducted soldiers the IDF will give you 400+ dead civilians" (obviously an old sign)

*Queers Against State Terror – t-shirts saying "I'd rather fuck who I want to than kill who I'm told to". A Kefaya moment!

*Collection for http://www.aidlubnan.com/. This site has photos of a demonstration from last week with many of the same attendees.
*S11 conspiracy theorists - an Asian woman and her kid who held photos of the plane hitting the Pentagon. They were hippies, not Mohammed Omran's group - they carried rainbow peace signs, pics of doves etc.

UNITED SNAKES CHECKLIST
BLOW UP BUILDINGS (tick)
BLOW UP MORE BUILDINGS(tick)
KILL CIVILIANS(tick)
KILL MORE CIVILIANS(tick)
KILL HEZBOLLAH [ ]
TAKE OVER COUNTRY [ ]

UNITED (pictures of snakes – letters and snakes filled in with US, UK and Israel flags)

lone wingnut painting a large sign -
MEL GIBSON
[heart] FOR PM
HOWARD FUNDS
WAR MACHINE
(DEMOCRACY)
OZ TAXES > £ UK ARMS MANUFACTURE
UN/UK/USA |
CRIMINALS <
NO DBL STDS
WAR (heart) IS BIG
BUSINESS
LET MELBOURNE MAKE
PORTABLE GAS OVENS
(Later, the "portable gas ovens" line had hearts drawn over the top of it.)

Your music post: TISM (who else?) Australia, The World's Suburb. A song apparently inspired by the following information:

"...before the birth of Israel in 1948, Australia, along with Canada and Argentina, was one of the leading sites proposed for a Jewish homeland, as a refuge for thousands of Jews escaping pogroms and persecution in the 1920s and Nazism in the 1930s. The most ambitious scheme in Australia proposed the purchase of seven million acres in the remote East Kimberley to accommodate up to 75,000 refugees from Nazism in the 1930s. The Kimberley Jewish Settlement scheme won the support of Western Australia’s state government but was rejected by PM John Curtin in 1944."

[EDIT: that download now works.]

You Must Have This - Leather Donut, etc

http://blackeyerecords.blogspot.com/

Cousin Creep has heroically started cataloguing the Leather Donut and Waste Sausage compilations, as well as other related Black & Red Eye artistes. You particularly must have:

The Cunt – Me & A Great Big Leather Man

Thug – Fuck Your Dad

The Furry Men of the North – I Like Looking At Naked Men

(Click on the link and scroll down.)

Plus, how can you not like a band called Purple Vulture Shit? Get over there and get downloading!!!

White Stripes BDO sideshow, Festering Hall, Jan 28

Next time I say to a person I'm driving to a gig "Don't worry, they won't be on for ages, no-one turns up when the doors open anyway" the night before a Big Day Out, could one of you guys please jump out of a convenient nearby closet and beat the living shit out of me? Thanking you in advance.

We turned up at about ten past nine, so I don't think we missed a lot of the show, but I have a horrible suspicion that we missed my favourite songs. Even if we didn't – and my memory of the setlist is a bit poor, despite being unwilling to spend a lot of time in the queue for the bar and therefore only having one beer – I didn't necessarily love what was played. There was nothing wrong with the set – the sound was fantastic, the rendition was dramatic and passionate, the lighting and set was striking and distinctive.

But for some reason, this show didn't leave me with the exhausted excitement I remember from, say, The Dictators, The Buzzcocks or even Michael Franti (all of these gigs being several years ago, and in Franti's case ten years ago). Instead of passionate love, all I felt was cold respect. And yet, now that I've come home and I'm listening to Get Behind Me Satan, I'm enjoying it as much as ever, and my favourite Stripes songs are an inspiration.

I am painfully aware that I am very old and haven't been to (or cared about) a rock gig in quite some time. Even so, surely well-executed music, interestingly presented (they had a bit of a leitmotif going with Meg's "Passive Manipulation", as well as some bitchin' blues stylings from Jack) should, if not give me a raging hard-on, at least raise my heart-rate a little?

There are mitigating factors – as Jack pointed out in a very rare bit of between song banter, "it's so hot I can't even breathe" – but I'm afraid I just can't regard the White Stripes as a "live" band. I'm just gonna sit here and bop away to "Take, Take, Take".

"It's almost as if she did not appreciate how cool I was bein'..."

In other news, my 7-year-old niece is getting into the blues and Acca Dacca, so my evil plan is coming along nicely MWAH-HAH-HAAAHHH!!!

Dodge Veg-o-Matic

I'm a Lamborghini Murcielago!

You're not subtle, but you don't want to be. Fast, loud, and dramatic, you want people to notice you, and then get out of the way. In a world full of sheep, you're a raging bull.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Roman Polanski Is Really Quite A Jovial Fellow

Read this, then flip a coin: do you want to fuck him or beat the shit out of him?

[EDIT: Why is it that when I post a fantastic set of songs like the Pash tracks below, no fucker comments, but when I profess a totally inappropriate interest in adolescent boys with pretensions to alternativia, people pour out of the fucking woodwork? PS jimh: go you good thing.]

A slight change of subject - Pash, Spacehoppin'

I’ve been busy at my new job, and no-one reads this anyway, so I’m changing horses mid-race (“you were in a race?”) to attempt to rectify an injustice.

As we all know, “the worst bands are most popular/arseholes make the most money”, genius may be utterly unidentified and songs that should by rights be in consideration for the national anthem (that aren’t ‘Khe Sanh’) are not even a hit in a tiny indie community, let alone hogging the #1 spot for six weeks before finally being knocked off by Santa’s Super Sleigh or somesuch crap.

Pash’s bass player Ben Life (who sent me the CD) was the editor of Skills of Defensive Driving zine, a Sydney zine which I don’t own any copies of (a bit before my time, and my time was fucking aeons ago), as well as a particularly hilarious screed called “I Hate Myself and Want to Dye (My Hair)”.

Ben sent Spacehoppin’ to me in the mail back when I was doing my zine, oddly enough entitled “Ms .45”. It contains some of the greatest power-pop songs ever written – romantic but not soppy, anthemic but not by-the-numbers, with olde-style organ and sax (and, according to the liner notes, skateboards). They’re not all gems, but I never get sick of these now fifteen year old songs (gee, you don’t sound it) and I think everyone should have them. In reverse order of greatness, here they are.

Pash – Tang

Pash – Instant Date

Pash – The Force