May 2007 Archives

Saw Manu Chao in concert for the second time last night. Very similar set and style to the one last summer -- rowdy punk/ska, very bouncy and energetic. He reminds me of Prince in an odd way, with the nonstop energy and mischievousness and repetition of favorite catch phrases. On the other hand, his focus couldn't be further from Prince's. Last time I saw Prince in concert -- 2005, I believe? -- he basically partied like it was 1991, and even performed a rap monologue about his conflict with Warner. My reaction was, "Wow, Bush just got reelected for a second term, we're almost five years into the "War on Terror", we're bogged down in Iraq, and he's still talking about THAT?!" Chao, on the other hand, is very focused on the big picture and the global situation, and wants you to think about it even while you're partying.

Fun show, although as I told my friends, I'd love to see him perform an accoustic set at a small club some day.

Highlight: the naked guy that jumped on stage and ran around while an unfazed Radio Bemba Sound System kept on playing.

Here's a picture Michael took with his phone (naked guy not included):

Updated to add: A couple of links to interviews:

Entertainment Weekly

L.A> Weekly

There's a heated argument taking place on my high school reunion mailing list, of all places. I'll leave the other emails to your imagination (I don't think it would be OK to reproduce them here, though they are fascinating.) There was only so much I could take before I wrote this:

As a Jewish woman working at a Jewish organization in the Bay Area, I feel like I can't stay out of this one. These are my opinions only and don't reflect those of my employer.

Israel exists, people live there, they have a right to live there in peace. However, yes, Jews have had a presence there for longer than 59 years... but so have the Palestinians. Currently, they live in a miserable situation.

Arguments about who has more right to live there are, in my opinion, pointless, because taken to extremes, the options are "wipe out Israel" or send the Palestinians packing off to... where, exactly? The clock is never going to be turned back to a time when there was no Jewish state, and the "land without a people" never existed either. Mainstream opinion, even among the most Israel-supportive Jewish organizations (and the one I work at is one of them), says that the status quo is not OK and there needs to be a two-state solution.

There are extremists on both sides; peace would give them a smaller audience.

Last summer, during the war with Hamas, my office received first-person accounts of the terror that families living in northern Israel experienced during the rocket attacks. People were living in underground shelters for over a month! Real people got injured and killed. I can't even begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been. I saw photos of the damage -- at least one town had to be practically rebuilt.

But that doesn't erase the fact that I think about 10 times as many people perished in Lebanon at the same time, and Israel apparently used some weaponry that they really, really shouldn't have used. And the war didn't even accomplish Israel's objectives; Hamas is still alive and kicking. (Incidentally, my understanding is Hamas is popular in part because they did a lot of charitable work in the occupied territories that nobody else was doing. Nothing's ever simple, eh?)

The hardest thing to keep in mind is that one side's truth does not invalidate the other's.

I hadn't read this before...

The "Mother's Day Proclamation" by Julia Ward Howe was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Peace. So much better than breakfast in bed!

An Irish 17-year-old gets pregnant. She's planning on having the baby... until she finds out it has a fatal brain deformity and will die within three days of birth. Now she wants an abortion but isn't allowed to go to England to have one, and she can't legally obtain an abortion in Ireland unless she threatens to kill herself.

The 21st century is looking more and more like the bad old days all the time...

And it's not even MY baby, but I just thought this was so clever. Wish I'd thought of it. And they must have the world's most patient baby to sit in the Bumbo for the length of time it must have taken to create this...