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First Place | General Reporting
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Jan 28, 6:57am
18 reviews
photography, journalism, war
http://www.poyi.org/63/11/01.php
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Take time and look carefully at this photo, then read the cutline and look at it again.
First Place
Todd Heisler The Rocky Mountain News
When 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport, Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac. During the arrival of another Marine's casket last year at Denver International Airport, Major Steve Beck described the scene as one of the most powerful in the process: "See the people in the windows? They'll sit right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home," he said. "They're going to remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should."
This photo came to my attention via ScottFree2600s reviews.
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Stephen Mitchell Books
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Jan 22, 8:11pm
2 reviews
poetry
http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/transAdapt/poetryRilkeExcerpt.html
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[You who never arrived]
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of the next
moment. All the immense
images in me--the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house--, and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...
-- Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
"The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke," edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell is an excellent collection and includes side by side German and English.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9z3Bjq3_R0
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Oct 11, 2007 8:19pm
2 reviews
jazz, video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9z3Bjq3_R0
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The late, great pianist Les McCann and collaborator Eddie Harris performing "Compared To What." The song became a hit and part of an album, "Swiss Movement" at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1969. This performance is from 1989, 7 years before McCann's death.
To see full video: youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
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C-SPAN
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Oct 11, 2007 10:33am
4 reviews
politics, food-safety
http://www.cspan.org/
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China & Food Safety
C-SPAN2
The House Energy & Commerce Cmte. recently released a report criticizing Chinese food safety standards. David Nelson, the cmte.'s lead investigator on food safety, discusses the report's findings during an Oversight Subcmte. hearing, chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI).
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A hearing has just been held regarding food safety in the United States. The hearing goes far beyond China (it includes other countries as well as agriculture in this country). It gets to the heart of what the FDA is capable of doing. How does it achieve better food safety in this country, given its lack of power and funding, and what could be done to change its authority? Should it have recall power? What sort of regulatory authorities should it have? Why have their been no epidemiology studies done on U.S. agriculture in the last ten years?
Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" -- a book originally meant (by its author) as a socialist treatise, ultimately became a muckraking catalyst that helped change food-safety laws in the the U.S. Within six months of its publication, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Beef Inspection Act were passed (the Pure Food Act had been languishing in congress for the previous two years).
101 years after "The Jungle's" publication, we're still debating the problems of food safety. Agencies and companies are still dancing around the subject. It is impossible to guarantee the absolute safety of anything. It is, however, absurd that the most basic preventative food-safety laws are still being debated, or that the FDA has no recall power. They can only "urge" companies to recall tainted meat (or anything else suspect). By the time "tainted" meat has been recalled by a company (on its own volition), millions of pounds of that meat has been purchased and consumed.
The hearing has just ended, but can be seen at cspan.org on CSPAN2 (via Real Player or Windows Media Player).
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Visit Vienna: photos from the highlights projected in Satellite or Map
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Sep 28, 2007 8:56pm
2 reviews
environment, travel
http://wiki.worldflicks.org/vienna.html
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Danke Helmut... easy browsing of Vienna's major sites and a map of the city.
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Sep 1, 2007 7:56am
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THE JOKE
by Milan Kundera
 So here I was, home again after all those years. Standing in the main square (which I'd crossed countless times in my childhood, boyhood, and youth), I felt no emotion whatsoever; all I could think was that the flat space, with the spire of its town hall (like a soldier in an ancient helmet) rising above the rooftops, looked like a huge parade ground and that the military past of the Moravian town, once a bastion against Magyar and Turk invaders, had engraved a set of irrevocably hideous features on its face.
For years there had been nothing to attract me; I'd told myself I had no feeling left for the place, which seemed perfectly natural: I'd been away for fifteen years, I had almost no friends or acquaintances left (and wished to avoid the ones I did have), and my mother was buried among strangers in a grave I had never tended. But I had been deceiving myself: what I'd called indifference was in fact aversion; the motivations for it had escaped me, because here as elsewhere I had had both good and bad experiences, but there it was; and it was this trip that had made me conscious of it: the mission that had brought me here could easily have been accomplished in Prague, and if I suddenly felt irresistibly drawn to the prospect of seeing it through here in my hometown, it was because the whole idea was so cynical and base as to make a mockery of any suspicions that I had come out of any maudlin attachment to things past.
(Originally published in Czechoslovakia in 1967, it was banned by the Soviet Union in 1968 after the Prague Spring.
The above excerpts the first two paragraphs. This English translation was first published in the U.S.A. by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. 1982. The book I have used is a 1987 King Penguin published in the U.K. This is considered an authorized translation. Any typesetting mistakes are mine. Photo of Prague by Ana, 1991)
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YouTube - mike watt + the missingmen - Blue Oyster Cult cover song
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Sep 1, 2007 7:50am
1 review
music, video, live-music
http://youtube.com/watch?v=p4s9TIZxQRQ
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 A Minutemen staple in their day (and still continuously covered by Mike Watt), a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "The Red and The Black"...
Out of all the Minutemen Youtube vidoes out there, including Mike Watt playing this song with a whole host of different musicians (J. Mascis, Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl and so on), I chose this one because Joe Baiza is in on it (playing guitar off to the far right)... Joe, though you're in the background of this one, you're the Ornette Coleman of guitar players!
(Joe Baiza pictured left, 1986 LA)
Link to see full screen: youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
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Steely Dan - Aja - 180 Gram Vinyl
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Sep 1, 2007 7:49am
1 review
music, steely-dan, vinyl
http://store.acousticsounds.com/browse_detail.cfm?Title_ID=39750
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For anyone interested in VINYL and Steely Dan:
"Aja" celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and has been re-released in a remastered, high density, genuine vinyl LP record!
The original album, released in 1977, was created with meticulous attention to detail in music and engineering. It was awarded a Grammy in 1978 for Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording, as well as being this band's first Platinum album. That it's been remastered with more meticulous attention to engineering on high quality vinyl, seems appropriate, yet still a thing of wonder.
It's not cheap, but if you like both, it seems a worthy purchase.
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Smithsonian Folkways Recordings - American Folk & World Music Documentary - Audi…
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Sep 1, 2007 7:48am
9 reviews
folk-music, photography, music
http://www.folkways.si.edu/
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I ran into this collection the year after it was first released. I had not heard of or listened to it, nor did I know anything about Folkways Records. I did know Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly and thought it might be interesting. It is more than that. The entire collection is filled with a diversity of musicians, giving life to music too easily forgotten.
Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter* (left) and Woody Guthrie recorded for Folkways Records. Though they were of different cultural backgrounds, reflected in their musical styles, their music fits well together. The Smithsonian Institution acquired Folkways Records and the Woody Guthrie Archives in 1988 along with the commitment to keeping the music available to the public.
"Folkways Records, the inspiration and life-work of Moses Asch, was dedicated to bringing to the record-buying public the entire world of sound...from poetry, political speeches and plays by the rich and famous as well as the poor and angry... everyday people's music, not that of a fortunate few who may rule or dictate taste." (Anthony Seeger, Smithsonian Institution, 1988)
Now called Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, their current motto, though a little stiff, is in keeping with Asch's original vision: Supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound.
*The spelling of Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter's nickname and given name have never been consistent in publication. I used the spelling from the Folkways album. However, he has been known as "Ledbelly," "Lead Belly," and his given name, Hudy William Ledbetter, has been spelled Huddie as well. The Folkways album uses the latter spelling.
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American Hotel Downtown LA - Portraits of Los Angeles - Raymond Y Newton - Photo…
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Aug 31, 2007 2:06pm
1 review
photography, los-angeles, downtown, tavern
http://laedge.com/AmericanHotel.html
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Ana's Adiós to Al's
I spent a fair amount of time at Al's Bar in the mid-eighties, which managed to feel like home in a city that was trying to reach 10 million... and upstairs at the American Hotel visiting friends (musicians I knew that called the American home). One of its quirky attractions was that it was so damned difficult to find. The street always seemed to hide itself.
Al's was a place to hear music on the edge in the 70s and 80s. I understand this continued into the 90s and... well, up till the end. Corporate investors purchased the American Hotel and Al's Bar (part of the property) a few years back. The entire area has become gentrified in that way that cities do with warehouse districts full of artists. They pretty it up and make it so that art appreciators can feel safe going there as well.
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