Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Decemberists at the Crystal Ballroom

The Decemberists will play at the Crystal Ballroom Wednesday, January 23 at 9 p.m.

Here's where you can get some of my favorite Decemberists songs:
The Decemberists - 16 Military Wives
The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect [Buy mp3!!!]
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3 [Buy mp3!!!]
The Decemberists - Apology Song [Buy mp3!!!]
The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours [Buy mp3!!!]

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Dan Deacon at Holocene

Dan Deacon plays tonight at Holocene, 9 p.m., tickets $10 at Jackpot Records.

Dan Deacon - Snake Mistakes [Buy mp3!!!]
Dan Deacon - When I Was Taller
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat [YouTube][Buy mp3!!!]
Dan Deacon - Lion With A Sharks Head
Dan Deacon - Pink Batman [Buy mp3!!!]

Buy Spiderman of the Rings.

Collective punishment versus justice

A small news story yesterday was the United Nations condemning Israel's use of "collective punishment."

It is extremely important that more people understand the destructive meaning of the phrase "collective punishment." I first learned it when Bush decided to collectively punish the entire country of Afghanistan in retribution for 9/11. Great, I thought. Bush looked at the never-ending war in collective-punishment-loving Israel and decided he wanted a piece of that good stuff for the U.S. of A.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Collective punishment is severe injustice. Remember Qana, when Israel killed dozens of children to "punish" some kidnappers? If not, graphic image, graphic image, graphic image, graphic image, graphic image, graphic image. Why do they hate us, in-fucking-deed. The Qana massacre was the first time since 9/11 that the news made me cry. No, scrub that, there was Bush's re-"election", which drove me into a depression from which I haven't yet recovered.

The American sense of justice has been badly perverted by the Republicans leading our country since 9/11. Just as in Martin Luther King's day, racism, pure and simple, drives our foreign policy, propped up by television shows like "24", which assumes brown people are guilty until "proven" guilty by confessions delivered under torture.

That's not justice, and it's not the innocent-until-proven-guilty, Bill of Rights America I loved before Bush got his idiot hands on it. I hope the America that believes in justice, not the racist mob vengeance of "collective punishment," returns by January 21, 2009. That America is that only one strong and intelligent enough to capture and punish Osama bin Laden, instead of innocent brown children who possibly live on the same continent.