El Duderino is online

The ever reliable Pooter Geek has discovered Jeff Bridges's site.

It's original and just what you'd expect from the man who plays the Dude, Lebowski.

Holy chit BatgrRlz, it’s Kate Moss in blackface

Holy chit BatgrRlz, it’s Kate Moss in blackface

Here's a link to why blackface is bad. And why Little Britain is just racist. It's not "post Political Correctness". It's not funny. It's back to the 1970's and it ain't half racist mum.

And Rullsenberg is also agin it.

Criticism of white actors "blacking up" is not po-faced Political Correctness. It's a recognition that it's demeaning and a gross betrayal of the dignity of all involved.

As Hannah Pool splendidly writes in the Guardian about the Independent cover,

What exactly is this picture of Moss-as-African-woman supposed to portray? I suppose it is meant to be subversive, but what does it say about race today when a quality newspaper decides that its readers will only relate to Africa through a blacked-up white model rather than a real-life black woman? What does it say about the fight against HIV/Aids if that is the only way to make us care? And, as a black woman (born that way), what does this trick say about me?

The phenomenon of white entertainers putting boot polish on their faces to "look black" is nothing new, but like Jim Davidson and mother-in-law gags, it was supposed to be something that was banished to the underground eschelons of the entertainment circuit.

And yet it's back. From Bo' Selecta!, whose grotesque imitations of Michael Jackson and Mel B (always wearing leopardskin to signify her wildness) to Big Brother's Glyn blacking up, to Samantha Fox dressed up as an Asian woman, to white actors pretending to be black to play Othello. But the most high-profile example is Little Britain.

Yes. Black face is back and so is mainstream racism.

Bluff Corner

There's a moment when you've just met someone and you talk about the stuff you like, the stuff that makes you tick, the stuff that makes you go all wow. Gary Giddens in Weather Bird captures that moment (Introduction and Acknowledgements, p xvi).

... Ray Charles made an album called Genius + Soul = Jazz, and I thought if Ray is jazz then that's the place to look, especially after I met a girl who said she liked jazz and when I said "me too," quizzed me, humming a tune and challenging me to name it. I could think of only two jazz titles, "One O'Clock Jump" and "Take Five," neither of which I had ever heard, but I crumpled my brow and scratched my chin, and said, "Um, it sounds a little bit like 'Take Five,' a little, maybe." She said, "You really do know jazz." Thank you, Lord.

In the last essay, "How Come Jazz Isn't Dead", Giddens tells of Lester Bowie posing as a Jism magazine critic to ask "Isn't jazz, as we know it, dead yet?" and then, after a trumpet solo mockingly responding, "Well that all depends on what you know". Giddens concludes that Jazz is not dead but ailing "because even the most adventurous young musicians are weighed down by the massive accomplishments of the past" (How Come Jazz Isn't Dead, in Weather Bird p 601) and because of the Supreme Court ruling of 2003, on copyright extension to almost perpetuity, stopping small labels publishing classic recordings that major labels have lost all interest in.

Jazz isn't dead. It's there and always will be. And all music of the last century is jazz or at least jazz-influenced. And, as everyone knows (well, as Artie Fishel told me), jazz was born in Eastern European stetls.

Synchronicity, the Stoa and the Rail Splitter

Reading emails to this blog I came across an email telling me the Virtual Stoa has moved to here. So I went to look at the new site. And very good it is too. And yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Pablo Neruda. My take on Neruda ia that he was an important Twentieth Century poet of the oppressed who was a believer in the Socialist paradise that was Stalin's USSR. Octavio Paz described

"think[ing] of … Neruda and other famous Stalinist writers I feel the gooseflesh that I get from reading certain passages of Dante’s Inferno. No doubt they began in good faith, but insensibly, commitment by commitment, they saw themselves becoming entangled in a mesh of lies, falsehoods, deceits and perjuries, until they lost their souls."

That's what happens when you start seeking answers to important questions like why are so many of the world's people poor and oppressed, and discover an all-encompassing meta-narrative that replaces the need for thinking with obedience to an ideology and the personnification of that ideology.

Don't think. Just believe.

That's not to deny that Neruda wrote some great poetry that sings of, and to, the oppressed and the workers of the world. But he also wrote some hagiographic crud to Joseph Stalin that just drags down his oeuvre.

Here's the beginning of "Let the Rail Splitter Awake".

West of the Colorado river is a place I love.
I turn towards it, with everything that lives in me,
with all that I was, and am, and believe.
There are tall red rocks, made structures
by the savage air with its thousand hands,
and the scarlet sky arose from the abyss
into them to become copper, fire and strength.
America, stretched like a buffalo hide,
aerial, clear night of gallop,
there towards the starred summits
I drink your cup of green dew.

And then I thought of Il Postino, the 1995 film about Neruda in exile. And then I thought of the letter I'm waiting for from my parents in exile. Only connect.

Bibliopoles and Pugilism

There's a fight going on in the world of publishing and bookselling. This week's Weekly Worker carries a letter that complains about Bookmarks.

The people who run the Socialist Workers Party bookshop called Bookmarks in central London are into censorship and it stinks.

We publish a magazine that any socialist would be interested in reading ... Bookmarks refuse to stock our magazine. This is strange, considering we don’t allow fascists or racists to write for us, but do encourage debate about some old leftwing shibboleths, especially those to do with ‘class struggle’.

The draconian management at Bookmarks are letting down anyone engaged in an attempt to make sense of our world today. ... It’s a shame, because Bookmarks in the old days used to be a thriving socialist bookshop in the heart of north London - a real hub of debate and discussion, with a vast and exciting range of literature, always full up with people. With such a po-faced management team these days, it’s hardly surprising no-one goes there and is only kept alive by the party faithful digging deep week after week.

Sean Delaney
Principia Dialectica

Following up on the magazine's own site you get this amusing response:

Mike writes: maybe they thoughtyour mag was a load of pretentious bollocks and not worth stocking - but its easier to shout “stalinist” than look at yourself critically…

Looking at the other places that do stock the magazine Bookmarks' refusal may be down to ideological differences and that the magazine is a load of Judith Butleresque nonsense. Alternatively, Bookmarks may be under Stalinist management.

Gotham City and the Sky Mirror

Anish Kapoor's wonderful Sky Mirror has just been installed at the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

It was previously displayed outside the Playhouse Theatre in Nottingham. According to the BBC

[i]t has previously been placed in Nottingham, where it caused concern over whether it could set people or birds alight.

Now I know Nottingham has a bad reputation but are there really that many incomers from Gotham?

Day For Darfur

Tomorrow is an official Day For Darfur.

Get your blue hat and wear it.

And go and do something.

Modern Times is a super anagram of Timrod

Bob Dylan's acclaimed new album Modern Times has been noted for Dylan's appropriation of some lines from Henry Timrod.

As far as I can see it's a fair cop, badge out, laid off.

To [Scott] Warmuth [a disc jockey in Albuquerque and a former music director for WUSB, a public radio station in Stony Brook, on Long Island], who found 10 phrases echoing Timrod’s poetry on “Modern Times,” Mr. Dylan’s work is still original. “You could give the collected works of Henry Timrod to a bunch of people, but none of them are going to come up with Bob Dylan songs,” he said.

Thomas Truax

Last night went to see Thomas Truax.

What a show. A small appreciative audience saw an excellent performance. Imagine Lake Wobegon on something mind-enhancing and you have the world of Thomas Truax.

Brilliant.

And speaking of Lake Wobegon, here's a saying for today, "Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that let people know they are having a good time, even if they themselves are not sure."

If Thomas Truax comes to a town near you, go and marvel.

World Trade WTF

A 9/11 documentary has been pulled from US tv by some CBS affiliate stations because TV companies fear the Federal Communications Commission may object to firefighters swearing.

The film was scheduled to go out at 8pm yesterday. However, any station airing it before 10pm could be fined for breaching "broadcast decency standards". CBS confirmed that affiliates representing about 10 per cent of the US had elected "not broadcast the program or would show it late at night".

Such is the sway of the prissy over what the United States watches. Prissy, prudish euphemistic talk kills. Blunt talking saves lives.

When public awareness campaigns about medical conditions talk about parts of the body, and bodily functions using language that no-one but no-one outside a Victorian literary meeting of belle-lettristes uses they get ignored. No-one pays attention. Get down and talk dirty. And don't be afraid to offend the prissy, prudish and uptight. It'll save more lives than being inoffensive and polite ever will.

Part of the Union

Eric Lee, of the excellent Labour Start site, has issued a request for help for Australian Construction workers:

This week's message is brief and very much to the point -- and needs your attention today.

The Howard government in Australia is one of the most anti-union in the world, breaking new ground in its efforts to smash the trade union movement in that country.

Among its first victims are 107 construction workers, who are being prosecuted for alleged "illegal" industrial action following the sacking of a union delegate.

According to Kevin Reynolds, Secretary of the West Australian Branch of the CFMEU union, "Under the Howard Government, the basic right to vote to take strike action in support of better conditions and a safe workplace has now been criminalised."

The workers made their first appearance in court yesterday (Monday).

They are asking workers around the world to mobilize and send messages of protest to government officials today:

www.labourstart.org/.../solidarityforever

The families of the 107 are facing fines of A$28,600, meaning massive financial hardship and destitution because of these punitive laws. Please give generously:

here

Spread the word - pass this message on!

Thank you.

Eric Lee

Darfur

Amnesty International has a Darfur Campaign. It's not been the most high profile campaign but they have had one. Details are here. Further details on Amnesty's site are here.

For more up to date information see the excellent Sudan Watch.

There's an interview with Eric Reeves, an academic expert on the Darfur conflict, at Democracy Now that has been picked up by Mick Hartley. You can read Mick Hartley for a good summary and extract from the interview.

Here's my take on the latest situation. The Sudanese government has rejected a draft U.N. resolution calling for a 17,000 person force to be deployed to Darfur. Reeves says

Khartoum is right now planning a massive military offensive in North Darfur, which has been the most violent of the three Darfur states.

If this offensive takes place, there will be massive, massive civilian destruction. I think we're also likely to see a withdrawal of virtually all humanitarian workers. This will leave some 1.2 million people completely dependent on humanitarian aid, without any assistance whatsoever. By my own calculation, some 500,000 people have already died. As many more could die in the coming year if current trends continue.

The U.S.A's Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer got a frosty reception and a "No" from the Sudanese President, to accepting the U.N peacekeeping force. Not being a Permanent Member of the U.N. Security Council you'd think that Sudan would not have that much say in what the U.N. does or does not do. And you'd be wrong.

New global political realities are forming. Sudan is the major offshore oil supplier
to China and China dominates oil production in southern Sudan. Any U.N. force will only be deployed if there is a concensual resolution. Khartoum consistently says that any state supporting the U.N. resolution is an enemy of the state of Sudan, and that is something China does not want to be. Thus any resolution will be vetoed by China. To quote Eric Reeves

[China] will veto any resolution, and we come up against a very, very difficult problem. What will we do if the United Nations proves incapable of acting in the face of ongoing massive genocide?

Faced by such a question what is the response of campaigning NGOs such as Amnesty? It's the Global Day for Darfur where you can wear a blue hat on September 17th. Is it an adequate response? No. Have I signed up for it? Yes. Do I feel annoyed and angered by the inadequacy of the response? For the love of Hegel, yes.

On Books and Book Buying

On Eric Lee's recommendation I bought "The Mind at Work - Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker" by Mike Rose. And a fine, informative read it is, setting out to demolish the myth that there are workers by hand and workers by brain. Most workers by hand also use intelligence in all aspects of their job. (And, I would like to add, some workers by brain show an alarming lack of intelligence). As Rose says, on page xxvii,

I think we need to be cautious in assuming extensive and necessary effects of particular kinds of work on the thinking ability of the people who do them. Such analysis can obscure the nuance and variation in individual people's experence of work, as well as real differences in the physical and social environment of individual workplaces. The complexity of working life is therefore reduced. We can pinpoint the harmful effects of modern working conditions ... without positing an automatic diminishment of a worker's awareness and capacity to reason.

That assumption that so many people make, that John Doe has a manual job therefore John Doe must be not very intelligent is just wrong and ill-founded. And the corresponding assumption that John Fotheringey has a professional job therefore John Fotheringey must be intelligent is just wrong and ill-founded. And that assumption plays into public policy on education and training and is just wrong and ill-founded.

And if you are going to get it, get it from Union Communication Services. The book is available here.

On Names and Things

In my previous post, on failing to read, I referenced a book by Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies.

There's a splendid review of that work here by a splendidly named chap, George Cowmeadow Bauman. He describes himself as "a career bibliopole and a lifetime bibliophile, if not an outright bibliomaniac".

And what is wrong with that?

On Failing to Read

Norm cites Nick Hornby as saying 'if you're reading a book that's killing you, put it down and read something else'.

That may be so for some people and some books. However, most people have picked up a book in a bookshop or a library and started to read and taken the book home. And there it sits. By a favourite chair or on a table by the bed. And it is picked up. And the first pages are read. Something happens. The telephone rings. The television gets interesting. What's that music playing? Worst of all, you fall asleep.

Distractions prevent you from being enveloped by the book. You want to read it. You really do want to read it. It's just that you haven't got the time. It's just that you haven't got the energy. So many books to read. So little time.

Last year I bought David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It's a big, multi-stranded narrative of a world. I carried it in my bag for weeks. I'd pick it up while waiting for Rullsenberg. In coffee shops I'd drink my filter coffee and try and read. I just couldn't concentrate for any length of time. Too much noise. Too many distractions. Just too much everything stopping me.

I was about to give up and blame the book. But then I started reading in a quiet coffee bar in the Djanogly Art Gallery. And I finally got into it. And a damn fine book it is too.

But there are just too many books to read. In "So Many Books", page 22, Gabriel Zaid wrote

"In the first century of printing (1450 - 1550), 35,000 titles were published; in the last half-century (1950 - 2000), there were a thousand times more - 36 million. ... Books are published at such a rapid rate that they make us exponentially more ignorant. If a person read a book a day, he would be neglecting to read four thousand others, published the same day. In other words, the books he didn't read would pile up four thousand times faster than the books he did read, and his ignorance would grow four thousand times faster than his knowledge."

To read voraciously is to gaze into the abyss of the finite when infinity is needed to even approach completion.

Zaid, ibid page 24, goes on to say

"And maybe the measure of our reading should therefore be, not the number of books we've read, but the state in which they leave us.

What does it matter how cultivated and up-to-date we are, or how many thousands of books we've read? What matters is how we feel, how we see, what we do after reading; whether the street and the clouds and the existence of others mean anything to us; whether reading makes us, physically, more alive."

If you're interested in reading and want to read about reading I would recommend "Gabriel Zaid's "So Many Books", Albert Manguel's "A History of Reading", Sven Birkert's "The Gutenberg Elegies", Anne Fadiman's "Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader". There are many more good books on reading, and readers, but that's a good list with which to start. If that doesn't float your reading boat just go and read.

Education

Here's a good comment on the annual gripe-fest that is the A-level results season.

Ministers are hesitant about accepting the case for A* grades, and rightly so. They know that, given the stubborn links between family background and exam achievement, the grade is most likely to be achieved by children from better-off homes. An A* would, to put it crudely, stop the masses from getting ideas above their station.

Those who favour the new grade argue, in effect, that A-levels have ceased to be effective rationing devices because they no longer allow the elite universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, to cherry-pick the best candidates. But Oxford and Cambridge have no obvious right to the brightest students. Some of the cleverest might benefit from other universities, including those with a more vocational bent. Why do we think it necessary to organise our entire exam system around the selection of a tiny proportion of the population for a highly academic education and privileged lifestyle at Oxford or Cambridge?

There are many things wrong with A-levels - too narrow, too specialist, too academic - but the lack of an A* grade isn't one of them.

Shouldn't exam results show what people have learned and not be part of a bigger rationing process for entry to prestigious (prestigious as in "held in high esteem" and as in "knavish") professions and institutions? Personally I failed most of my A-levels because I was bored and wanted to read stuff totally unrelated to my courses (I was doing Economics, Geography and Pure Mathematics and Statistics but spent months reading philosophy books and Bertrand Russell's autobiography). Thankfully I scraped through in Maths which led onto an HND in Computer Studies. But that is just me, I just wanted to read books, think and write an occasional essay. And didn't want any of the formal assessment that went with an A-level course. Some might say it's intellectual laziness. Others might say it's just laziness. Yup. Guilty.

Clamo, clamatis, omnes clamamus pro glace lactis sundae

What a fantastic weekend. Summer Sundae was a damn fine festival. With the Blockheads in the Musician Tent, on Friday, being as excellent as you'd expect. As someone once said, they are Britain's answer to the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section or to the MGs. Why isn't there a queue of people wanting to record with the Blockheads?

Saturday saw a brilliant performance from Tunng. Then a splendid singalong-a performance from Leith's finest, The Proclaimers.

There were many more highlights. I'll remember more tomorrow.

It's late. I'm tired and I'm off to bed.

For more highlights see Rullsenberg's record of the weekend. And here. And here.

Starbucks and the Wobblies

Counago and Spaves cross post from the Wobblies on the current dispute between Starbucks and IWW members in the U.S.A. Here's an extract

The Wobblies at Starbucks have proven that by taking direct action against the company over issues of concern to workers and by avoiding the skewed certification process of NLRB elections, baristas can improve their lives on and off the job. This strategy only works however, if the company incurs significant economic, political, and social costs when it violates the right to organize by terminating workers for union activity.

Take action with us sisters and brothers. Together we will win:

1) Do not spend your hard earned money at Starbucks until the company respects the right of workers to organize and reinstates Daniel Gross and the rest of the IWW baristas. Let the company know you are taking a stand by participating in the email action:

starbucksunion.org

2) Obtain a resolution or pledge from your community group, labor union, or house of worship agreeing to stay way from Starbucks products until justice is done. Please send copies to starbucksunion@yahoo.com.

3) Hold a rally or leafleting action at Starbucks in support of the right to organize and in defense of the fired union baristas if you feel that's appropriate in your local community. Please check in with the baristas at the store beforehand to involve them in the action.

And here's a link to the Wobblies.

Cricket Lovely Cricket

Last Sunday had a grand day out at Derbyshire County Cricket Club watching Derbyshire play West Indies A.

When we arived the weather was warm. The picnic bags were full. The West Indies were fielding.

When we left, after an excellent day's fun, the weather was still warm, the picnic bags were empty and Derbyshire won by 30 runs. Here's the scorecard.

Here's a report from the Gleaner.

The International Cricket Council is investing heavily in promoting cricket in its current Associate and Affiliate member counties. And that's a good thing. The more countries playing cricket the better.

However it needs to look at the decline of cricket in the Caribbean. Those of us of a certain generation grew up watching Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Alvin Kallicharan and Clive Lloyd conquer the world. We are now saddened by the decline in West Indian cricket. Indeed a simple search on google for "west indian cricket" decline gets 565 responses.

Here's a serious piece, by Jeffery Mordecai, that blames the West Indies Cricket Board's imposition of "a ridiculous eligibility rule" as, a major, reason for the decline. In 1994 the Board made eligibility for the West Indian team depend on playing in domestic inter-island competitions. As Mordecai argues

Our administrators chose instead to put all their efforts into developing and improving our domestic regional and national competitions. This was and is an admirable policy initiative, for the long run, but cannot fully replace foreign professional competition in the short to medium term.

The Eligibility Rule has destroyed the very ingredient that led to our dominance of world cricket by providing that you cannot represent the West Indies unless you represent your territory in all the rounds of the domestic regional competition. In other words, if you secure a professional contract you cannot play for the West Indies.

What is the equivalent rule in the other international sports? There is none!

Does Dwight Yorke have to play every match in the domestic season for Joe Public to represent Trinidad and Tobago in football? Do Brazil and Argentina prohibit their best players from playing abroad?

Such a rule would be impossible to conceive in any other international sport but in our case, the national association (WICB) unbelievably imposed it on themselves, without any input from the ICC

Put like that, will anyone be surprised when the West Indies will soon struggle to beat Bangladesh.

Doppelgangers

Prescedence. Shmescedence.

There is a man. A man with a blog. A blog called "A Cloud In Trousers". Like this one.

Then along comes a man. A man with a blog. A blog called "A Cloud In Trousers". Like this one.

The leftmarch guy has rather cool tastes (haha - found a link to Deep-bloody-Purple - not so cool now). He even opens with an excellent post on graveyards. What's a man to do?

A spectre, or a frightful hobgoblin, is haunting me.

Hello FraVernero.

And thanks to Will Rubbish for pointing this out.