Ethel the Blog

Wikipedia takes all the fun out of life. Here I was all hepped up to start a list of canines in literature - prompted by Robert Grudin’s Book (even though the author unforgiveably offs the marvelously named Doppler therein) - when I find a huge list already in place at that repository of all knowledge (real or otherwise).  Ah well, if anyone has any further suggestions that aren’t on that list - or even if they are on the list and you want to say something about it - then have at it.

James Yeager entertains us with how Junior’s going to get rid of the evil Cheney cyborg.

…

In current presidential history, Bush Minor is too shallow for persuasion, too unsubtle for domination. What he likes is having the fix put in for so long in advance that he thinks nobody’s going to notice it’s been fixed. Like being a Yale legacy, or being let into and then skipping out on the National Guard.

So when Bush finally realizes he needs to persuade Cheney to leave for the good of the country, it will be done an entirely different way. But rest assured Cheney’s defrocking cannot fail to reveal the kind of sly idiocy this administration customarily mistakes for fancy footwork.

About the best thing Bush can do to appear to refurbish his pluperfect irrelevance is to dump Cheney and appoint John McCain vice president. Safe move, Senate’s already gone Democratic. One less vote isn’t going to matter.

McCain’s the heir-apparent already. That’s his reward for caving into Bush on torture and warrantless wiretapping while giving the dimmer bulbs among the media glare the impression of not having done so.

Cheney’s going to have to go as part of the Iraq policy realignment anyway. The one that dare not speak its name. The one that takes until the next presidential term because the situation is so ineffably infundibulated that the best bipartisan military and civilian minds in America will have to take that long to work it out. By comparison, extracting an army in the field from the midst of civil war took Napoleon the better part of four years, and he at least had the merit of being a military genius.

The only real question for now is, do they need to pull a Bill Casey on Cheney or not? Some will recall that new Defense guy Bob Gates was Casey’s deputy CIA Director when Casey had a sudden brain aneurysm the day before he was supposed to testify to Congress about linking Reagan to the Iran-Contra scandal of fragrant memory.

Completely unexpected. Nobody had any idea. Why, Casey was in perfect health. Old, but, you know, perfect health. Took one for the Gipper, perhaps.

Well, Cheney’s never been in perfect health since his first heart attack, much less his last one. So if he disappeared into an ambulance and failed to emerge vigorously on the other end of the ride nobody, nobody, would be surprised.

It may not come to that. Cheney may prefer to take his dour and impervious self-righteousness back to Wyoming where he can drunkenly shoot endangered species, pollute his ranch, and count his money all he wants.

But there are two kinds of craziness infesting the top of the Bush-Cheney cluster-failure. One of them is Cheney’s insistence that he alone interprets the world correctly and anybody who says different is a sissy. The other is Bush’s stark operating principle that words have no inherent meaning.

The divorce from reality that these habits of thought engender is so severe that you have to wonder if their practitioners were ever married to actuality at all. Or even went out on dates.

Given the complex psycho-daddy relationship Cheney has with Bush Minor, it is not too far-fetched to think Bush may want to remove Cheney for non-political reasons too. Remember what the prison shrink says to the condemned murderer Williams in the Lemmon/Matthau remake of The Front Page? The shrink asks Williams to tell him about his youth; Williams says it was wonderful, happy, no tension. “Completely normal childhood.” The shrink says, “I see. So you wanted to kill your father and sleep with your mother.”

Since we know nobody on the face of God’s good earth wants to sleep with Bar, and Poppy still has Secret Service protection, taking out Father-Figure might be the only avenue to psychic relief left for poor little Georgie, especially if he hasn’t already started drinking again.

Nobody as lethargically concerned with his legacy as Bush is could omit an opportunity to wipe away the appearances of the past and substitute the illusion of progress while, in fact, altering nothing of substance whatsoever. The frat boy who would do anything crude to be the center of attention at parties hasn’t changed.

McCain’s replacing Cheney. Don’t know how, don’t know when. But it makes more sense than the war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, legislation for sale, or gay Republicans. Oh, but wait. Maybe that’s why it won’t happen after all. Makes too much sense.

Be sure to also read the priceless LBJ anecdote at the start of the piece.

Although at a decidedly non-whopping 251 pages, Grudin’s Book doesn’t really have the heft one wants (i.e. needs) in a Shandean tome, it does have the components. An ostensible mystery, it contains parodies of seventeen literary forms, self-referential footnotes, back-jacket blurbs by the dramatis personae, book-related quotations from the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica at the start of each chapter, power reamings of literary theorists and the New York book publishing scene, and two count ‘em two postscripts. While some might call it too clever (and what the hell does that mean besides either “I don’t get it but I don’t want to admit it” or “I get and I want everyone to know” anyway), I call it a fine literary diversion that will reward you directly in proportion to your prior knowledge of literary theory and literary forms. I figure I started out about 75% away from getting all the inside literary stuff, and gained about 15% along the way, so it was both entertaining and “clever” enough to be educational. I’ve always much preferred the “novel of ideas” to the “novel of character” (the distinction having first been discovered as such via one of Gore Vidal’s essay collections) anyway, which explains the many scifi novels populating parts of the warehouse.

Postscript: Dammit!  That’ll teach me to comment on the damned book before I read the last twenty pages.  Grudin killed off Doppler the dog!  That bastard!  Of all the literary sins, dogicide is the worst and the one I’m least likely to forgive.

A collection of live recordings from Europe from 1960 to 1963.

Live 'Trane: Underground

DISC 1

Miles Davis Quintet, 1960:

Unknown venue, probably West Germany
between March 21 and April 10, 1960

1. So What (10:36--beginning cut off)
2. 'Round Midnight (5:46)
3. Walkin' (11:01--incomplete)
4. So What (10:17)

Miles Davis (trumpet)
John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Wynton Kelly (piano)
Paul Chambers (bass)
Jimmy Cobb (drums)

Kongresshalle
Frankfurt am Main, West Germany
March 30, 1960

5. announcement (0:15)
6. So What (12:57)
7. All of You (9:50--incomplete)

Miles Davis (trumpet)
John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Wynton Kelly (piano)
Paul Chambers (bass)
Jimmy Cobb (drums)

DISC 2

John Coltrane Quintet

Olympia Theatre, Paris, Nov. 18, 1961
First concert (6:30 pm):
1. Impressions (10:53)
2. I Want to Talk About You (6:52)
3. Blue Train (16:07)
4. My Favorite Things (22:33)
5. announcement by Norman Granz (1:41)
6. Impressions (same as track 1, different source (10:54)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax),
Eric Dolphy (alto sax),
McCoy Tyner (piano),
Reggie Workman (bass),
Elvin Jones (drums).

DISC 3

Olympia Theatre
Paris
Nov. 18, 1961
Second concert (11:30 pm)
1. Blue Train (12:47)
2. I Want to Talk About You (9:38)
3. My Favorite Things (25:35)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax)
Eric Dolphy (alto sax, flute)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

Konserthuset
Stockholm
Nov. 23, 1961, second set
4. Naima (incomplete) (2:34)

John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

Auditorium Maximum
Freie University
Berlin, West Germany
Dec. 2, 1961
5. Impressions (13:05)

John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Eric Dolphy (alto sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 4

Falkonercentret
Copenhagen, Denmark
Nov. 20, 1961

1. announcement by Norman Granz (2:24)
2. Delilah (12:03)
3. Every Time We Say Goodbye (5:11)
4. Impressions (14:16)
5. Naima (7:40)
6. My Favorite Things--false start 1 (0:40)
7. My Favorite Things--false start 2 (0:08)
8. announcement by John Coltrane (0:39)
9. My Favorite Things (28:54)

John Coltrane (soprano sax, tenor sax)
Eric Dolphy (bass clarinet, alto sax, flute)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 5

Kulttuuritalo
Helsinki, Finland
Nov. 22, 1961
Second concert (9:15 pm):

1. Blue Train (8:58)
2. I Want to Talk About You (6:58)
3. Impressions (7:59)
4. My Favorite Things (20:20)

Sudwestfunk TV Studio
Baden-Baden, West Germany
Nov. 24, 1961

5. announcement (2:16)
6. My Favorite Things (10:37)
7. announcement (0:58)
8. Every Time We Say Goodbye (5:13)
9. announcement (0:50)
10. Impressions (7:15)
11. untitled blues (trio) (1:28)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax)
Eric Dolphy (alto sax, flute)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 6

Kongresshalle
Frankfurt am Main
West Germany
Nov. 27, 1961
1. Impressions (17:29--beginning cut off)
2. Every Time We Say Goodbye (5:15)
3. My Favorite Things (19:14--beginning cut off)

NOTE:  Every Time We Say Goodbye is actually from Baden-Baden, Nov. 24, 1961
(i.e., disc 6, track 2 is the same as disc 5, track  .
My Favorite Things opened the concert.

Liederhalle
Stuttgart
Nov. 29, 1961

4. Impressions (9:12)
5. Every Time We Say Goodbye (5:28)
6. My Favorite Things (14:39--ending cut off)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax)
Eric Dolphy (alto sax, flute)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Reggie Workman (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 7--John Coltrane Quartet, 1962:

Falkonercentret, Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 22, 1962
1. Bye Bye Blackbird (21:03)
2. Chasin' the Trane (7:30)
3. The Inchworm (9:10)
4. Every Time We Say Goodbye (5:44)
5. Mr. P.C. (19:28)

John Coltrane (soprano sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 8--John Coltrane Quartet, 1962:

Falkonercentret, Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 22, 1962--continued
1. I Want to Talk About You (11:11)
2. Traneing In (23:23)
3. Impressions (8:59)
4. My Favorite Things (19:20--incomplete)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

Stefaniensall, Graz, Nov. 28, 1962
5. Autumn Leaves (10:33)

John Coltrane (soprano sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 9

Showboat, Philadelphia, June (possibly 10, 17, or 24) 1963
1. Chasin' the Trane (10:50)
2. It's Easy to Remember (6:42)
3. Up  'Gainst the Wall (5:40--incomplete)
4. The Inchworm (8:34)
5. Impressions (13:27--incomplete)
6. audience noise (0:24)
John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax),
McCoy Tyner (piano--only on "Impressions" and the last few minutes of "The Inchworm"),
Jimmy Garrison (bass),
Roy Haynes (drums).

Tivoli Koncertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark, Oct. 25, 1963
7. Mr. P.C. (23:41)
John Coltrane (tenor sax),
McCoy Tyner (piano),
Jimmy Garrison (bass),
Elvin Jones (drums).

DISC 10

Tivoli Koncertsal
Copenhagen, Denmark
Oct. 25, 1963--continued

1. Impressions (19:27--incomplete)
2. The Promise (10:01)
3. Afro Blue (8:43)
4. Naima (7:46)
5. My Favorite Things (17:15)

John Coltrane (tenor sax, soprano sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

Date and location uncertain (sometimes attributed to Paris,
Nov. 1, 1963, but this probably is incorrect; may be from 1962)

6. Chasin' the Trane (5:21)

John Coltrane (tenor sax)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

DISC 11

Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Nov. 4, 1963
1. The Promise (7:32)
2. Afro Blue (6:48)
3. I Want to Talk About You (10:42)
4. Impressions (28:52)

John Coltrane (soprano sax, tenor sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums).

DISC 12

Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Nov. 4, 1963--continued
1. My Favorite Things (18:51)
2. Every Time We Say Goodbye (6:11)
3. Mr. P.C. (35:52)

John Coltrane (soprano sax, tenor sax)
McCoy Tyner (piano)
Jimmy Garrison (bass)
Elvin Jones (drums)

Paul William Roberts tells us what the desperate losers of the recent election are currently up to in the Middle East.

…According to the Iraqi newspaper Al- Quds al-Arabi, James Baker, the Bush family’s Mr. Fixit , recently met with one of Saddam Hussein’s lawyers in Amman, Jordan, and told him that the former deputy prime minister of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, would be released from detention by December in order to negotiate with the US on behalf of factions of the Iraqi resistance movement still controlled by old Ba’ath Party leaders. Sources in Jordan tell me that the first stage of such negotiations has indeed already taken place. Two weeks ago, Aziz was whisked from his jail cell and, along with other representatives of Iraq’s Sunni Resistance, taken for three days’ of secret discussions in Amman with senior US officials. It is heartening to note that this course of action was advised by the Atlantic Free Press three weeks ago. Aziz and his colleagues are currently discussing America’s proposals with the divisional resistance leadership, whose response and counter-offers they will present to Washington early next month.

Jordan’s Crown Prince Hassan tells me, furthermore, that Condoleeza Rice made a personal appeal to the Gulf Cooperation Council last month to act as intermediaries between the US and the armed Sunni resistance, not including Iraqi al-Qaeda leaders. Rice evidently joked during the closed-door meeting that “if Donald Rumsfeld could hear me now he would wage war against me fiercer and hotter than he waged in Iraq.”

…

We’re told that Al-Maliki’s going to be sacrificed at the altar of expediency and the puppet government will be reorganized in a more Sunni-friendly way.

Next up, a view of Iran other than the subtle “evil purveyors of evil terrorism and even eviler further evils” promulgated by the cabal and their media whores. Geez, who knew that those not blessed by the one and only creator with U.S. citizenship had motivations other than hating freedom, world domination, and making sandwiches out of U.S. babies?

…In this, as in all Middle Eastern political poker these days, Teheran holds better cards than Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh, or Baghdad. While state media ply us with tales of Iran’s profligacy as chief arms merchant to violent dissent, the real story is that of Iran’s restraint. There were larger shoulder-launched missiles to supply Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon – ones capable of reaching every city in Israel – yet Teheran chose not to make them available. There is an awful lot more that the Iranian military could provide to Iraqi resistance groups, too, yet to date it is the Russians, via Syria, who have provided most of the weaponry. Why is Iran so coy?

One could speculate that the Islamic Republic will not play its hand until Iran’s air force includes nuclear missiles; or one could theorize that the Iranian clergy still hopes to extend national influence into Iraq along religious lines, without force. But no one in Iran is going to let us see what cards his country holds because they aren’t playing poker there at all, they’re playing chess, the national game. Among its many shortcomings, the DC Situation Room lacks a really good chess player — which is a pity, since chess is all they play in there.

Israel also used to display a blistering strategic chess game, where now all we see is a kosher ham-fisted version of checkers. Particularly in response to the elegant gambit played from Teheran, whose President Ahmadinejad is used like a Queen to carry out showily distracting but inconsequential assaults into enemy terrain, while the Bishops position themselves for far more lethal operations.

The real power in Teheran is an oligarchy linked to oil and interwoven with senior clerics yet essentially secular in its goals. Your media don’t bother you with this reality, however, for reasons best known to themselves. To retain the status quo, however, the oligarchs must placate the impoverished masses with a myth of spiritual warfare in which Iran fights for God against Satan. God has just awarded one of Iran’s citizens the deeds to Satan’s embassy in Teheran in lieu of a cash payment for the fine imposed by a clerical court for wrongful imprisonment – so the war is going well! At least no one in Teheran’s corridors of power actually believes this yarn, though, while Washington is infested with religious psychopaths who seriously (or rather comically) think they’re up against a guy with horns who has set himself up as the Competition.

…

Finally, some fun comments about the ham-fisted pyschopaths who’ve been engaging in what passes for U.S. diplomacy in the fading days of empire.

… The day America admits it no longer produces diplomats able to hold their own in a serious global match will be the day it might be allowed back into the world community with observer credentials. Henry Kissinger was a better butcher than he was diplomat, but at least he knew how to sit down and deal. As Saddam Hussein will tell you — since The Godfather is his favorite movie – when the other mob leaders think Sonny has taken over the family, they start a war. Putting John Bolton in the UN is like making The Terminator President: a very bad idea someone in Washington will always be enamored with until an even worse idea occurs to them.

From the comments over at Tiny Revolution (by some chap named Ted):

…I find it hard to believe that the government lied compellingly and abnormally, because you’d have to be some kind of naive to think the government tells the truth and thus we’re surprised that, gasp, lies on occasion.

During 2001/2002 we put a lot of men and equipment in the field. I saw a LOT of convoys on the highway to destinations unknown and asked myself, hmm — where’s this all going? Will the rotational costs be justified if it’s not used? If it’s not used won’t it indicate weak leadership to send 500K men to the middle east only to have them return six-months later? Won’t it be viewed that accepting any compliance by Saddam would be postponing the problem (like his dad did 10 years prior). Wouldn’t this be used as an excuse to clean house once an for all? Are we apt to let the UN set our security policy because they think we’re unilateral? How would THAT play with the average American? Don’t we have a right to preemptive war?

A lot of coded reporting occurred that indicated precisely what was going to happen, and yet, political forces both on the right and left told us that it was undecided if we’d go to war. Only the clueless believed that. I’m sorry if characterizing it so offends anyone.

People want to be lied to obliquely because it absolves them of responsibility and provides plausible deniability. And now we can all deny involvement or prior knowledge of the war (except for that pesky Google). But look, when the PRESS is being patriotic, you know that you’re going to get a pack of lies on a range of issues. And the press is still being patriotic vs. truthful because, well, because it’s owned by large media with no further responsibility other than selling us crap. Our choice is to be comfortable by following the patriotic press or uncomfortable by demanding truth from the press and ourselves.

We’ll go through this exercise again after Iran.

The Memory Hole has now made available the 3rd of 4 volumes of the very hard to find Kerry Report, and provide the background:

In 1987/8, two subcommittees of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held three 14 days of hearings on drug trafficking. Headed by Sen. John F. Kerry (D - Mass.), the panel heard evidence of official corruption in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The next year, the government published the transcripts in a 4-volume set that has remained a touchstone for anyone interested in narco-corruption, particularly as it involves US intelligence agencies.

The trouble is, this 1,800-page goldmine of information has been incredibly hard to find. The Memory Hole’s copy was given to me by a friend of the family—Lorenzo Hagerty—who told me an interesting story. As soon as the Kerry Report was published, Lorenzo ordered a set of the transcripts from the Government Printing Office. When it arrived, he began reading it and realized how important it was. He immediately called the GPO to order another set. He was told that the set was already out of print and would not be published again. It had been available to the public for one single week.

Volume 1 is available as a series of HTML documents, and volumes 2 and 3 as PDF files. An equally rare single volume summary is also available in PDF format. A couple of random dips will quickly reveal why it was pulled so quickly. Too bad the media’s too busy making s’mores and playing double-dog dare  (Pelosi is so old and icky!  Gag me with a spoon!  I really, really like that dreamy Trent Lott!) at slumber parties to notice.

Wayne Madsen brings up an interesting issue about the videotape made of the FBI’s attempted ABSCAM sting of John Murtha that the American Spectator conveniently obtained just before his attempt to become House Majority Leader.

Since Murtha was never indicted for any wrongdoing, such a videotape was at the very least secret grand jury evidence and should have been kept sealed or destroyed after the statute of limitations expired. Since Robert Gates is a good friend of the American Spectator’s publisher, the Senate should ask Gates about the origins of the Murtha videotape during his confirmation hearings.

He also tells of School of the Americas alumni performing dirty work in exchange for citizenship.

U.S. military sources have reported to WMR that there are currently 10,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq who are not U.S. citizens. The troops, mostly recruits from Latin America, have been promised eventual U.S. citizenship. Senior military officers decry this practice as the use of mercenaries by the Pentagon. In addition, many of the abuses of Iraqi citizens by U.S. troops are being carried out by the mercenary troops, some of whom have been involved in Latin American military and paramilitary units charged with human rights violations.

I vaguely recall Bruce Sterling predicting the future replacement of the U.S. military by Latin American mercenaries in his “Islands in the Net.”

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya writes of the plan to redraw the map in the Middle East. We begin with a summary of the big plan via a map published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006:

According to the author, it has been used in training programs at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. It was designed by retired Lieutenant-Colonel (Army) Ralph Peters, who apparently believes it will “fundamentally solve the problems of the contemporary Middle East.” One suspects that the more correct belief is that it will fundamentally solve the problems the U.S. corporate state has with the Middle East, with the massive destruction, disruption, and near genocidal “adjustments” required to achieve this aim being excused via reference to Henry Kissinger’s recipe for making omelets. Oh, the burden. It’s sheer coincidence that Condi - the official mouthpiece and balloon floater for the neocon foreign policy apparatus - used the exact phrase “New Middle East” during a speech in Tel Aviv in the same month the article came out.

Nazemroaya summarizes with:

…

The redrawing and partition of the Middle East from the Eastern Mediterranean shores of Lebanon and Syria to Anatolia (Asia Minor), Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian Plateau responds to broad economic, strategic and military objectives, which are part of a longstanding Anglo-American and Israeli agenda in the region.

The Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.

NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan has been successfully divided, all but in name. Animosity has been inseminated in the Levant, where a Palestinian civil war is being nurtured and divisions in Lebanon agitated. The Eastern Mediterranean has been successfully militarized by NATO. Syria and Iran continue to be demonized by the Western media, with a view to justifying a military agenda. In turn, the Western media has fed, on a daily basis, incorrect and biased notions that the populations of Iraq cannot co-exist and that the conflict is not a war of occupation but a “civil war” characterised by domestic strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic. In fact, they are part of carefully designed covert intelligence agenda.

Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.

The first of Mickey Hart’s excursions into percussion-based world music, and he was doing it before it was popular and profitable as you can see by the release date. This precursor to At the Edge, Planet Drum and Mystery Box (with the first two also spawning interesting books) has an extensive guest list including Airto Moreira, Flora Purim and the Brazilian group Batucaje. It is also an extremely well recorded album from the standpoint of pure sonics, featuring remarkable clarity, instrumental separation and the wide dynamic range that became extinct in the recording industry about a decade ago.