Thursday, May 06, 2010

Back to Detroit - Wayne Kramer

Wayne Kramer, one of the MC5's guitarists, after a life of missteps, drugs and jail, righted himself. Since then he's released some heavy hitting albums. They're mixes of protopunk guitar rock, beat poetry over tape loops and pretty instrumentals. I recommend them heartily.

For our purposes I'm posting his video for "Back to Detroit". It's his town and the song is about the lost place that city's become. The video's a little too dark at times but the bleak, hopelessness of the place is conveyed. Enjoy!



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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Is Bloomberg (and the rest of the politicians) insane?

When I read that Mayor Bloomberg suggested the Times Square bomber might have been a lone crazy or "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something" I was floored. Aside from, at best unintentionally, linking it to the Tea Party crowd, it seemed, well, sort of dumb. Now I don't know that it wasn't a "lone wolf" but I sure as anything don't assume from the start that someone who's put a bomb in TIMES SQUARE near the VIACOM building(hello, South Park) is upset about the health care bill. Not as one of my first choices. Probably not as my eleventh or eighty seventh choice. When someone tries to set a bomb off in a very public place in NYC I think Islamic terrorists. I base on on a vast preponderance of past experience. I may be wrong but my point is that if I were to start looking for suspects I don't think I'd start with the anti-health reform bill crowd.
Now that a naturalized US citizen from Pakistan was caught on a plane ready to lift off to Dubai I'm wondering if the mayor will retract his statement. I hope it does prove to be a lone wolf (though, of course, the possibility of dozens of other similar men acting in a similar fashion in the future scares the bejabbers out of me), but I'm sort of doubtful that he has anything important to offer in the way of a health care bill critique.
Was the mayor trying to allay New Yorkers' fears by making the bombing attempt look like just some run of the mill Patriot movement militia member? Is he worried that if he says it might have been, shall we say, at least related to the larger Islamic terrorist offensive against the West someone will look at him askance? I, surely, cannot see into the little heart of Mayor Bloomberg and discern his motives. I will say, though, that I wish he'd simply said 'no comment', or 'the investigation's proceeding'. Then we wouldn't have the experience of his dismissive little gust of nonsense being revealed as wrong and I wouldn't be worried that he was simply lying or, worse yet, wrong, revealing a lack of understanding of the dangerous situation this city was in on Saturday night. Please, tell us the truth about what you actually know or keep your mouths shut. Don't try to calm us with misdirecting nonsense or scare us by revealing your blinding ignorance.